When you hear the title Seeking Justice (originally it was called The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, but that was dropped) it is not uncommon for you to think it is a Steven Seagal flick from the 90s. Unfortunately this is not the case. Seeking Justice is yet another nail in the coffin of Nicolas Cage’s career, a career that should have been abandoned by its owner years ago.
Nic Cage plays English teacher Will Gerrard whose wife is attacked one night. In the hospital he is approached by a man named Simon who proposes a Faustian pact. Simon will take care of the attacker for Will and then Will has to return the favor at a future time. Without asking what that favor will be Will agrees to the deal. Only to find out that Simon is not up to any good. Surprise. Surprise.
After Trespass this is yet another Nicolas Cage thriller that tries to bring a decent plot to fruition, but fails in the execution. There are some interesting questions that are asked in Seeking Justice. What do you do when you know the authorities are powerless to solve a crime? When is it time to take justice into your own hands? Well, a sane person would say never, but that would make for an even more boring movie. The problem with these questions is that the decision making process for Nic’s character is played out in a very short time. There is really no indication that police are going to be powerless to solve this crime. So Nic’s decision to invoke the help of Simon is totally unjustified.
When you compare a movie like Seeking Justice with movies like Death Wish or The Brave One, there is a fundamental difference. In the latter the vigilantes do the dirty work themselves, which makes for a very personal approach. In Seeking Justice an elaborate web is woven that is supposed to give more meaning to the way Simon and his cohorts go about their business. It should give their a better motive. But it doesn’t, it just shines a light on the city of New Orleans that promotes the idea that people down their are lazy and unwilling to clean up their city. This is not a city that was devastated by negligence and corruption. This is a city that was the victim of an enormous natural disaster that could hardly have been avoided. It takes years, decades even, to overcome a disaster like that and to use that as an excuse to frame your movie is downright insensitive and rude.
While the premise is mildly interesting and director Roger Donaldson (The Bank Job) keeps the movie going at a decent pace, nobody can keep this train wreck from colliding with the laws of common sense and film making. Especially in the third act the movie comes to a grinding halt. The word Seeking in the title is taken very seriously when Nic is literally seeking the truth behind everything that is going on. We see him go through the motions of piecing together the clues: visit people, run from people, escape from somewhere, find a clue, run a little and so forth. This could have been the kinetic conclusion that could have saved the movie, but in reality it just makes everything more ludicrous then it already was. Let’s just hope Nic’s finances are going to be in order soon, so he can go back to making decent movies and stop being the laughing stock of the movie industry. By now it’s not funny anymore, it’s just sad.
My Movie Year 2012 
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