I’m not usually swayed by the deluge of direct-to-VoD/DVD titles headlining actor Nicolas Cage. Bearing that in mind, I found myself intrigued in the past year or so having spotted the extended sales trailer for Johnny Martin’s directorial debut, Vengenace: A Love Story, a film based on the work of author Joyce Carol Oates and adapted for the screen by John Mankiewicz.
That trailer stayed stuck in my head for months to date and it’s probably the only Cage film to have done that in a long, LONG time, and only because it didn’t merely try to sell me a Nicolas Cage action thriller… It sold me characters. It sold me story, setting and tone with some terrific performances from our cast including Anna Hutchison and Talitha Bateman, and Don Johnson among the bunch to round out Martin’s seething revenge narrative here.
The film has its share of mixed reviews online as we speak and so I reckon it’s not perfect. Apart from that, all I know is Martin’s freshnan outing here is a compelling one, and I look forward to it myself in due time following its September 15 limited release from FilmRise.
On the Fourth of July, single mother Teena is brutally assaulted by a local gang in front of her 12-year-old daughter Bethie. Despite Bethie being able to identify the attackers, the defense hires a local hot-shot defense attorney who manipulates the law to their advantage. When the criminals are set free, Gulf War veteran and detective John Dromoor (Nicolas Cage) is dismayed by the lack of justice and plots revenge against the men on Teena’s behalf.
The official trailer is live as of Wednesday – a different cut than from its earlier version but still a neat packaging of what’s to come whether you’re a Cage fan or not. This looks very good. Peep it.
