Cage Match: Seeking Justice

Cage Match is an ongoing look at the direct to DTV works of Nicolas Cage. I'll watch them, review them and rank them so we can determine what reigns supreme in this era of Cage.

What’s Cage up to this time?

Cage is Will Gerard, a man who is so happily married you know some bad shit is absolutely going to happen. And then it does! His wife is assaulted and Will is approached by a sketchy man with the ole “hey you want someone murdered? Because I will absolutely murder somebody for you, I’ll just need a favour later on,” deal. Your classic Throw Momma from The Train situation. He accepts and hey, wouldn’t you know it, that doesn’t turn out great for him.

Who else is in the cage?

There’s a few other big names in this one! Will’s wife, Laura, is played by January Jones who at this point was a good get for your movie.

The villain is played by Guy Pearce who, same as January Jones, may not be as tough a get now but not too bad for 2011!

Harold Perrineau, aka Michael from Lost, is in here as Will’s best friend and Jennifer Carpenter from Dexter is here, but I think she only speaks maybe one time which makes this is a very odd career move for her.

The director is Roger Donaldson who holy shit, has quite the filmography! This guy did Dante’s Peak! Man, this is an actual movie movie by recent Cage standards.

Is the movie worthy of Cage?

As touched on a little bit above, Seeking Justice isn’t going to be winning any points for originality but sometimes it’s more about the execution and I was pretty invested in this one!

We know from moment one that Will is obviously going to find himself over his head once Guy Pearce (I’m sure he has a character name but come on, it’s mostly just Guy Pearce) comes to collect the promised favour. It’s not like he’s going to ask Will to help him move, although I won’t argue that would maybe be a better movie. No dice though, it’s your classic “yeah look you gotta do a murder for me now” favour. Will argues back, somehow assuming that Guy Pearce will just say “huh. I really wanted you to do the murder but…I guess if you don’t want to it’s fine.” Things escalate from there.

The most intriguing, and the most ridiculous, part of the plot is the whole secret organization that is a part of this “discreet” murder club. Their whole mantra is that they are a handful of citizens taking justice into their own hands, but there’s SO God damn many of them. Almost every other character Will encounters ends up being in the organization or knows about the organization. It really seems like the world’s worst kept secret and they will let fucking anybody into their “tight knit” group. This would never work. Somebody would blab immediately. This is already in the era of social media and shit. This would be exposed within two days. “Hey, y’all. Guess what? Ya boi is in the murder cluuuuuuuuuub!” This aspect of the movie is fun at first but once it becomes clear the safe assumption is always that characters are secret murder clubbers, it takes away some of the enjoyment.

There’s still fun to be had in watching how Will is going to get out of this situation. He’s not a highly capable action hero guy, even if he does have a couple of moments that edge close to that. He can’t punch his way out of this one so watching him try and work through the situation is just interesting enough for the movie to have held my attention.

There aren’t any huge twists or turns here. Events unfold largely as you would expect but the cast keeps things interesting and I did want to see the conclusion so I guess this is another one that falls into the category of “well, at least it wasn’t boring.”

How Cage-y is Cage?

Things started strong in this department! Will, his wife and their friends are having a night on the town and Cage is full on Cage-ing it up as Will is having the absolute the best time. Then his wife gets assaulted and he’s certainly no longer having the best time, so it becomes a much more restrained Cage performance. He still brings the effort but the drop in energy is a little too bad.

You bought the blu-ray?! Are there bonus features at least?!

Not a one!

Should you get into this cage?

Are you wrapping birthday presents or doing some casual spreadsheet work on your computer and are looking for something to have on in the background? Something that requires maybe 60% of your attention and you’ll be able to follow along still? Then Seeking Justice may just be for you! This is the perfect movie for those scenarios.

Where does it rank?

This will continue to get more and more challenging as these mid-tier, perfectly fine but ultimately forgettable thrillers continue to show up.

Mom and Dad
Rage
Arsenal
Vengeance: A Love Story
Running with the Devil
Seeking Justice
Primal
Pay the Ghost
Outcast
Left Behind

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