An eye for an eye (1996)

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Movie
German title eye to eye
Original title Eye for an eye
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1996
length 97 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director John Schlesinger
script Rick Jaffa ,
Amanda Silver
production Michael I. Levy
music James Newton Howard
camera Amir M. Mokri
cut Peter Honess
occupation

Eye for an Eye (alternative title: Eye for an Eye - eye for an eye ; original title: Eye for an Eye ) is an American thriller from 1996 . Directed by John Schlesinger , the screenplay was written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver based on a novel by Erika Holzer .

action

The happily married couple Karen and Mack McCann, who live in Santa Monica , have two daughters, little Megan and 17-year-old Julie, who was married to Karen. It's Megan's birthday when Julie skips gym class to help her mother prepare for the big party. Karen is late. So when she gets stuck in a traffic jam, she calls Julie. At that moment the doorbell rings and Julie is attacked. Karen helplessly overhears on the phone as the perpetrator abuses and kills her daughter.

The police officer Joe Denillo leads the investigation. He referred the dejected McCanns to a support group for parents whose children were also murdered. You will now find out that quite a few perpetrators get away with only minor punishments and that some acts go completely unpunished.

Finally, DNA traces convict Robert Doob, who had a criminal record, as the perpetrator. However, Doob's attorney, Susan Juke, managed to terminate the case because of a formal error: The prosecution had promised the defense that they would also be able to examine the DNA traces. After a change of the prosecuting attorney, this was not done. The McCanns have to accept that the perpetrator will be released. Doob makes fun of his mother in the courtroom.

Karen follows Doob after he leaves the courthouse. She finds out where he works and lives. She confides this to her friend and work colleague Dolly Green, who, however, urgently advises her to abandon Doob. In the evening she continues to visit the self-help group. She learns by chance that a small group has split off and - disappointed by the law enforcement authorities - wants to bring the perpetrators to justice themselves. Angel Kosinsky, who told Karen about the violent death of her own son, also belongs to the self-help group. The two become friends. Angel also advises Karen not to continue spying on Doob. But Karen won't let that be dissuaded. She realizes that Doob already has a new victim in his sights: an attractive Latina to whom he regularly delivers food. Karen tries to warn them, but fails due to language difficulties. She informs the police officer Denillo, but he cannot do anything without specific suspicion. In Karen, therefore, the decision to kill the perpetrator matures. She wants to speak to Angel and learns that she hasn't lost her son at all. She is a rather FBI -Agentin that about this legend has given access to group: For a long time there was a suspicion that some of the group vigilantism practiced.

Martin, the father of a child who was also murdered, establishes contact with a car repair shop, which serves as a meeting point for parents who want to judge the perpetrators themselves. He also gets Karen a gun. The group arranges self-defense courses and informs those affected where they can hold shooting exercises. However, each of those affected must carry out the act himself. Mack learns about the target practice and is disappointed that his wife has not taken him into her confidence. The two of them quarrel; Karen blames Mack that he could not understand her feelings because it was not his biological daughter who was murdered. Eventually they agree on a family vacation to gain some distance. When she learns that the Latina has been murdered and that Doob had again not been arrested, she changes her plans: She wants to settle accounts with Doob.

However, Karen says she still has urgent business matters to attend to. Mack goes on vacation with Megan without her. Karen breaks into Doob's apartment, deliberately leaving her baseball cap there. So she lures him into her house. Doob breaks in and meets the armed Karen who was expecting the break-in. Doob tells her he is not sorry for what he did and continues to provoke her. There is a duel, and Karen can shoot him. Denillo is convinced that she also committed vigilante justice, but he cannot prove it to her.

Reviews

On Rotten Tomatoes , where only 8% of a total of 38 reviews were positive, the film was described as "overwrought, thinly written and all around uncomfortable".

Roger Ebert drew comparisons to Dead Man Walking in his review in the Chicago Sun-Times of January 12, 1996 , which fell far behind the eye for an eye . Ebert said that the film was "intellectually corrupt" because it deliberately did not deal with the issues raised.

The lexicon of international films ruled that the film was annoying because of its “undisguised vigilante propaganda” and that the story developed “largely without tension to the foreseeable end”.

Cinema said that the film was captivating "until the end", but that it was "so questionable that viewers are ashamed to switch on".

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating “particularly valuable”.

backgrounds

The film was shot in Los Angeles . Its production amounted to an estimated 20 million US dollars . The film grossed approximately $ 26.8 million in US cinemas.

Jamie Lee Curtis was slated for the lead role but canceled in favor of filming house arrest . An Indian remake called Dushman was made in 1998. The term Eye for an Eye is in English for the biblical principle of law eye for an eye .

literature

Erika Holzer : Eye for an Eye. Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1995, ISBN 3-404-12398-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
  2. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  3. ↑ An eye for an eye. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Eye for eye on cinema.de
  5. ↑ An eye for an eye on fbw-filmbeval.com
  6. ^ Filming locations for Eye for an Eye
  7. ↑ Box office / business for Eye for an Eye
  8. ↑ Trivia on imdb.com