Give her a call, and she’ll give you justice. After escaping her violent husband, Sadie (Olivia Wilde) makes it her life’s mission to help free others in danger. Now, after months of rigorous training in survival skills, boxing, and lethal martial arts, Sadie is back with a vengeance in this fight-packed action-thriller.
Olivia Wilde has been making headlines recently as the director of the new teen dramedy, “Booksmart.” I haven’t seen it myself but heard many great things about it and for her directorial debut, she seems to have knocked it out of the ballpark. In “A Vigilante,” her performance dominates the movie and reminds us just how damn good she really is and it’s just a pity that director Sarah Daggar-Nickson starts the film off so well, only for the last act to succumb into conventional dramatics.
Ms. Wilde plays Sadie, a young woman who has suffered great tragedy in her life. Living with her young son and abusive husband, when she builds up the courage to leave him, she grabs her son and almost makes it out of the housing estate only for her husband to catch up with them. In a fit of rage, he kills their son, slashes Sadie repeatedly with his knife and then disappears. Sadie recounts this part of her life while attending group therapy along with other abused women. Sick and tired of constantly living in fear, she is determined to get strong again and learns martial arts and boxing and takes on a new mission in her life: to help other women who cannot fight back against their abusive partners.
We are shown several scenarios in which she is more than a match for the contemptuous and violent men she encounters but sporadically, we see Sadie focusing on a map on her wall, a layout of a large wooded area not far from where she lives. Occasionally, she visits these woods and clearly, she is looking for something, or someone, and on one of these visits, she is knocked unconscious by a masked man. When she awakens, she realizes that she is being held captive in a cabin in the woods by her ex-husband, who is still hellbent on controlling her and even blames her for their son’s death. After physically assaulting her again, she manages to free herself and faces him down, determined to take back her life, once and for all.
The first half of “A Vigilante” is brutal, raw, and unflinching in its portrayal of the violence that men can inflict on their wives or partners, people they are supposed to love and protect but just as ferocious, is Sadie’s retaliation against each and every one of them. She is tenacious in her desire to help these women get some semblance of normalcy back in their lives, without the fear of everyday violence, and is willing to accept whatever physical aggression might come her way, a result of the ensuing brawls.
Where “A Vigilante” falls down is in the last act. Sadie’s dogged determination is apparently not just geared toward helping the many women who need her but she is obviously preparing for something bigger, and that is the inevitable showdown with her ex-husband. Once we get to this scene, however, the film switches gears and we suddenly go from being in a small, independent movie with a strong female lead to quintessential revenge territory, where we already know the outcome long before we reach it. And when Sadie’s ex finally gets his comeuppance, it is done so in such an erratic and indiscriminate manner, it makes all of Sadie’s preparation and conditioning seem inconsequential.
Olivia Wilde has never been better, she is dangerous, savage, even overpowering, but she never resorts to murder. She gives these violent men a taste of their own medicine and then sends them packing so their families can live in peace without them. “A Vigilante” is very slow-moving and whatever shortcomings transpire, they are quickly laid to rest thanks to Olivia Wilde’s astonishing performance. I could definitely see her character in a series of films, as long as they don’t turn into “Death Wish 5” or “Exterminator 2.”
Available on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack (plus DVD and Digital), DVD, and Digital May 28th
