We’ve been sent a rather intense clip from Justice, the new film starring Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce. Lisa’s review of the film was posted an hour ago and judging from her words and this clip it appears to be superior Cage on offer this time around.

Cage and Pearce are joined by January Jones and this, is the synopsis,

Popular high school teacher Will Gerard (NICOLAS CAGE) lives a life of content domesticity with his beautiful musician wife Laura (JANUARY JONES). Until one night’s horrific events, turns their world upside down.

After Laura is violently attacked and left traumatised in hospital, Will is approached by a well-dressed stranger (GUY PEARCE) offering to dispense immediate justice to the attacker and save the couple from an emotionally traumatic trial. Distraught, Will accepts the proposal but soon learns justice comes at a price.

Yikes. Not one for the family then. But Cage and Pearce can pull out a decent performance when inspired and Jones, who has had a rough ride critically for her recent film appeareances will hopefully shine in this role.

Here’s the clip friends,

No stranger to staging well-paced crime thrillers, like The Bank Job, The Recruit and No Way Out, director Roger Donaldson is about as qualified as any to bring this gritty story of crime and revenge to the screen – all set in one of the most exciting cities in the US, New Orleans. But although most films cannot resist the seedy allure of the French Quarter – and this film is no exception in parts, Justice does try to delve into a more realistically captured but darker depiction.

Nic Cage stars as Will Gerard, a husband who enlists the services of a vigilante group, headed by its curious leader Simon (Guy Pearce), to help him settle the score after his wife, Laura (January Jones), is brutalised. However, Will gets involved way over his head and tries to get out of the deadly pact he has made. The trouble is whom can you trust?

While the film is a half-decent enough thriller with so many twists and turns it trips itself up at times, the basic thriller ingredients have been tried and tested a lot better before, so a good proportion of the film feels like a carbon-copy of others we’ve seen. Granted, the thrill for Cage fans is seeing their hero in a rather physical role, dodging traffic and hanging from underpasses that even leaves him rubbing his head (more than once, and usually in the car) in exasperation.

What is most intriguing is the film’s main idea of disenchantment in a wounded city still hurting from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, leading to self-served justice, and this gives the whole affair an empathetic but equally menacing edge. Cage is the ideal star to tap into this darker aspect.

Like Will, Cage has a crazed, risk-taking side that the New Orleans setting flatters and seems to nurture, and an increasingly erratic Cage is more than capable and watchable in this type of action role as he makes it his eccentric own. The issues come not from his portrayal, but from the complex – and sometimes irrelevant – labyrinth of subplots that Donaldson and writers feel are necessary to throw at him. With too much at play, other things naturally go unexplained.

Sadly, we only get to see a one-dimensional and frustratingly under-developed performance from Pearce, for example, with no explanation as to where his loyalties stem from – even though we understand that his character and others are designed to be as enigmatic as possible throughout to add to the intrigue. On the plus side, Jones, who normally adds the cutesy glamour to any scene, does some of her best work yet as the victim in the first half of the film, only to be sidelined in the rest as a pawn in the increasingly paranoid Cage dance with death. Still, it’s a vast improvement on her usual film roles, and one we’d quite like seeing her tackle again.

Justice is well staged at the start and has the presence to go far. It’s just the sum of its parts – like the random journalist murder subplot – don’t add up at times and make it feel somewhat disjointed. Cage fans are guaranteed a thrill at seeing him in action, with Ghost Rider elements of a mortal Blaze out to serve and protect the ‘ordinary man’ – and Cage is always satisfying in this type of ‘moral crusader’ role. It’s just a shame Donaldson’s film doesn’t fully realise that immense talent, having him running from pillar to post throughout – and making us rub our heads in anguish at times, too.

**½~~ (2.5/5)

Last week, we saw the first trailer for Nicolas Cage & Guy Pearce’s new movie, Justice and now Momentum Pictures / Alliance have released the first UK poster for the movie. The movie also stars January Jones of Mad Men fame and hits UK cinemas 18th November.

Popular high school teacher Will Gerard (NICOLAS CAGE) lives a life of content domesticity with his beautiful musician wife Laura (JANUARY JONES). Until one night’s horrific events, turns their world upside down.

After Laura is violently attacked and left traumatised in hospital, Will is approached by a well-dressed stranger (GUY PEARCE) offering to dispense immediate justice to the attacker and save the couple from an emotionally traumatic trial. Distraught, Will accepts the proposal but soon learns justice comes at a price.

Click the poster below to enlarge.

Momentum Pictures / Alliance have released the first trailer for Nicolas Cage Guy Pearce and January Jones’ new movie, Justice which according to IMDb is / was called Seeking Justice in the US. This may be the title in the US or it’s an old title but I’ve confirmed that the title is simply ‘Justice’. It’s directed by Roger Donaldson and is set for release in the UK November 18th and after seeing this trailer, I’m looking forward to it.

Popular high school teacher Will Gerard (NICOLAS CAGE) lives a life of content domesticity with his beautiful musician wife Laura (JANUARY JONES). Until one night’s horrific events, turns their world upside down.

After Laura is violently attacked and left traumatised in hospital, Will is approached by a well-dressed stranger (GUY PEARCE) offering to dispense immediate justice to the attacker and save the couple from an emotionally traumatic trial. Distraught, Will accepts the proposal but soon learns justice comes at a price.

Son of famed political French filmmaker Costa-Gavras Romain Gavras’ debut Our Day Will Come has been screened at the Toronto Film Festival to mostly positive reviews, with one critic suggesting that Gavras has “created something in the realm of a French Fight Club”.

The film stars Vincent Cassel and Olivier Barthelemy as two redheads who embark on a road trip from France to Ireland to escape all the ginger-related prejudice they’ve faced throughout their lives.

Gavras is a well known provocateur and this film sounds similar in theme to the promo he made for M.I.A earlier this year, a twisted “ginger genocide” narrative which managed to get banned from YouTube. His video for the Justice track Stress is equally controversial, but it’s also incredibly raw and powerful, suggesting Gavras might be following in his Dad’s footsteps.

Gavras, Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz (who directed the actor in French classic La Haine) are the founders of an artists’ collective called Kourtrajme, sharing ideas and working together with young and upcoming filmmakers, including Kim Chapiron, whose first English language film Dog Pound (a loose remake of Scum) was recently released in UK cinemas.

Our Day Will Come is being released in France this weekend and the film was bought by UK distribution company Optimum following its showing at Toronto.

The American justice system is broken. Innocent people, jailed twenty to thirty years ago, are now being freed based on forensic evidence re-assessed using modern techniques. People are being imprisoned for petty indiscretions like queue jumping and littering whilst violent criminals are allowed to go free due to technicalities, or a lack of ‘the right kind of evidence’. There are more and more cases of violence among youths, with the authorities powerless to doing anything about it. The judges are inept, the lawyers corrupt. The legal system is in dire need of a complete overhaul.

 An extreme view, to be sure, but one that many law abiding citizens share across the country. One also that is explored in Gary F Gray’s latest movie. Gray has explored similar themes before. His 1995 movie The Negotiator told the story of a cop who was told about a conspiracy involving several of his colleagues, and was subsequently framed in an attempt to discredit him, and hide the truth. He had no choice but to take the law into his own hands.

 In Law Abiding Citizen, another man feels compelled to do the same. Gerard Butler is Clyde Shelton. A mild mannered family man, his world is turned upside down when he is attacked, and his wife and daughter murdered during a random home invasion. Shelton is devastated. The perpetrators are caught, but when the court case comes around the district attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) doesn’t want to take it to trial. Considering Shelton’s testimony to be useless, due to his blacking out during the attack, Rice doesn’t want to lose the case and risk the blot on his outstanding prosecution record. Instead, he makes a plea bargain with one of the defendants, who gives up his partner in return for immunity. Shelton is devastated that justice has not been served, whilst Foxx considers it a job well done.

 Ten years later, the convicted attacker is due for execution via lethal injection. Someone however intervenes, and ensures the execution is as painful as possible. Then the defendant who was given immunity is found dead, having been tortured. Shelton is arrested, and goes willingly. He wants to make some deals of his own with the DA, and with ten years planning behind him aims to make the stakes as high as possible. Despite being safely under lock and key, Shelton begins to wreak revenge on the justice system, and the legal wranglers he holds responsible for the injustice he suffered all those years ago.

 There’s a deep message at the heart of Law Abiding Citizen, about how today’s legal system is flawed, that the people with the legal power in America don’t necessarily put the interests of the victims above their own, and asks how criminals known to be guilty are allowed freedom to re-offend over and over again. Unfortunately, this message is very well hidden. There’s one scene, set in the courtroom, where Gerard Butler’s character uses the flawed bail system to successfully demonstrate how stupid the legal system really is.

 This one scene has more resonance, and intelligent argument, than the rest of the movie altogether. What is actually on offer is trash. Entertaining trash to be sure, but trash nonetheless. The concept of the movie isn’t intrinsically flawed, and if the methods used by Shelton to strike vengeance on the legal system and lay bare the problems that lie within had been cleverly written, it could have been great.

 Instead, the plot goes from silly, to ridiculous, to downright ludicrous. Character motivations are sketchy, with some completely nonsensical methods employed by both Shelton and the DA to reach their goals. We don’t find out how the protagonist has set up the various traps and events until the climax, and when we do it feels like a cop out.

 The frankly dumb plot elements aren’t helped by some lousy acting. Butler shows two facial expressions, distraught and smug, with very little nuance in-between. Worse, though, is Academy Award winner Foxx, who really should know better. Seemingly on autopilot for the duration of the movie, he looks like an actor out for a paycheck.

 Some of the shock violent moments are entertaining in their over the top, cartoonish way, and there are some genuine laugh out loud moments. It’s not an unwatchable movie, and falls into that ‘so bad it’s good’ category. I really liked The Negotiator, but Gray clearly had a weaker script to work with this time around. Furthermore, Foxx and Butler are no Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey.

 Watch Law Abiding Citizen by all means, but wait for the DVD, grab some friends and some beer, and have a laugh with it. Oh, and check your IQ, and any sense of logic, at the door.

Law Abiding Citizen opens in the UK this Friday 27th November, and is at theatres nationwide in the US now.

 Bazmann – You can now follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann

Here’s a genius video that will make you smile this Friday lunchtime….

Ever wanted the Pixar lamp fall over and smash whenever you see it enter before a Pixar movie? It does beat the living $£%£$ out of the ‘I’ every time and could be deemed a bully! No?!

OK, neither have I, but obviously someone over at CollegeHumor has as they’ve made a video entitled: The Pixar Lamp Brought to Justice.

Check it out below!