A Vigilante: Olivia Wilde Out for Payback

No matter how much it asserts its feminist bona fides, this film will always be considered rightwing—and with some justification. It is highly debatable what Murphy Brown might think of Sadie, an abuse survivor who frequently takes the law into her own hands, but Dirty Harry would approve of the intention (but not always the execution, so to speak). Sadie will deliver some frontier justice to abusive husbands and mothers alike in Sarah Dagger-Nickson’s A Vigilante, which opens this Friday in New York.

Sadie has found her purpose defending the innocent, yet she will never truly be free until she faces up to the husband who terrorized her. Inconveniently, he is missing, but presumably not dead. We will see her intervene on behalf of several clients, while searching for the disappearing deadbeat.

And that is pretty much it. Daggar-Nickson is clearly more interested in Sadie as a character under stress than as an action figure, but her screenplay is still quite stark and spare, especially when it comes to those extravagant plot points. Nevertheless, she throws in some temporal gamesmanship to needlessly confuse the timeline. A Vigilante is not You Were Never Really Here, but it is surprisingly close, stylistically.

Regardless, Olivia Wilde does some of her best work probably ever as Sadie. She de-glams and goes largely non-verbal throughout her viscerally intense performance. In fact, only Tonye Patano manages not to whither next to her as Sadie’s support group leader. Problematically, that is especially true of Morgan Spector, who turns out to ne a big nothing as her husband.

Daggar-Nickson walks an exasperatingly fine line. Clearly, she refuses to indulge in the baser, cathartic impulses of traditional grindhouse revenge movies. As one might expect, by standing in the middle and refusing to make a choice, she still sets a tone for the film. Thanks to Wilde, it isn’t bad, but it should have much more visceral pop to it. It is not terrible, but it is definitely a missed opportunity.

Frustratingly, it is not recommended for those who will be most interested in a film titled, A Vigilante. For Wilde’s fans primarily, it opens this Friday (3/29) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Tribeca ’12: Deadfall

A prodigal son plows through a blizzard to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner.  However, this will not be the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting.  Instead, his fate will become intertwined with that of two wanted fugitives in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Deadfall, a chilly thriller from the Academy Award winning director of The Counterfeiters, which screens during the 2012 Tribeca FilmFestival.

Having endured a traumatic childhood together, Addison and his sister Liza are now hopelessly codependent.  He also has a propensity for violence.  They just knocked over a casino, but a freak accident mars their getaway.  Splitting up (for reasons driven more by the narrative than survival considerations) an exhausted Liza is rescued from the frozen roadside by Jay, an ex-con former Olympic boxer, who through a complicated set of circumstances already suspects the law is after his dumb hide.

Liza knows the cops are looking for her and Addison, so his parents’ home near the Canadian border sounds like the perfect rendezvous.  Much to her surprise though, she quickly develops intense feelings for the dumb palooka, which she can tell are mutual.  Liza does not yet know Jay’s father is the former sheriff and his successor’s unappreciated deputy-daughter is a close friend of the family, but she will learn when Jay’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles story turns into The Desperate Hours.

There are an awful lot of contrivances in Deadfall.  Indeed, Jay and Liza fall for each other faster than light-speed.  Still in his case, it might be rather believable, considering he just got out of prison and she is played by Olivia Wilde.  In fact, for the most part, Ruzowitzky’s energetic pacing and the conviction of his cast largely overcome the credibility gaps.

Most importantly, Addison and Liza make an excellent villain-femme fatale tandem.  Eric Bana compellingly brings out Addison’s avenging angel complex, while Wilde nicely balances Liza’s cunning and vulnerability.  Though Charlie Hunnam is not exactly a great thespian, the audience can certainly believe his ex-boxer has taken a number of blows to the head.  Not so surprisingly, Sissy Spacek adds a real touch of class to the film, playing Jay’s mother with grace and intelligence.

Despite the ragged edges, Deadfall is an easy man vs. man vs. the elements thriller to get caught up in.  Sure to become a family Thanksgiving tradition, it screens again this afternoon (4/26) as part of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.