Nicolas Cage makes his second visit to post-hurricane Katrina New Orleans in this efficient, fast-moving thriller. Two years ago he played a deranged cop in Werner Herzog's remake of Bad Lieutenant. Here he's the slightly hyper high-school English teacher Will Gerard whose wife Laura (January Jones) is raped, robbed and severely beaten by an evildoer known to the police but unlikely to get more than a minimum sentence. A sinister, tight-lipped stranger calling himself Simon (Guy Pearce) approaches Gerard, offering to dispose of the rapist in exchange for some future consideration of a minor kind. The distraught Gerard reluctantly accepts, and there follows a brilliantly handled scene in which he signals his acceptance of the invitation by buying two bars of chocolate from a vending machine in the hospital's oncology department. From then on he's hooked by a wide-ranging conspiracy of dedicated vigilantes who exploit his guilt and undermine his natural decency,...
- 11/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
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