Summary:
Karen hears her daughter getting raped and killed while talking to her on the phone. She was stuck in traffic at the time so there was nothing she could do to help her daughter. Her daughter’s killer, Robert Doob, was arrested and set free on a technicality. She becomes obsessed with her daughter’s death as well as with Robert. To help cope with her loss, she goes to a support group. The support group doesn’t help her get over her obsession with finding Robert. Once she finds him, she starts following him around. She sees Robert at the house of a woman she thought would be his next victim. The police didn’t believe her. The woman ended up being raped and murdered. Once again, Robert wasn’t able to stay in jail because of a lack of evidence. This made Karen decide to hook up with two vigilantes in her support group. They were going to give her the gun to kill him. Another member of her support group advises Karen not to go through with her plan to kill him. She warned her that unless the murder was in self-defense, she would go to jail. You can guess which option she chose without me having to tell you.
Here are my thoughts about the movie:
Plot:
I thought that the story was interesting. I thought it was intriguing to see how a mother would deal with feeling helpless in preventing her daughter’s rape and murder. How awful must that be to hear your child go through something like that and you’re helpless to stop it.
The movie had a fast pace in my opinion. I didn’t notice any slow or dull parts in the movie.
Acting:
Since the other cast members didn’t have much to do, I’ll concentrate on Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland. To be fair to the others, they did a good job with what they were given. I would have liked to see Ed Harris in this more since he was Julie’s stepfather.
I think that Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland did great jobs with their roles. Sally proved that she wasn’t going to be a victim. When she was upset about her daughter’s death, I was really able to feel her pain. Kiefer Sutherland did a very convincing job as a rapist/killer. He was so disgusting that you wanted to see him die. If that was the purpose of portraying the character this way, then he did an excellent job.
Character development:
If I were to have a problem with this movie, it would be the underdevelopment of Robert’s character. We’re never given an understanding of why he’s as evil as he is. Since the movie is told from Karen’s point of view, there is little room to flesh out Robert’s character. I know he’s evil, but I would have liked to know why. Was he molested? Was he beat up as a child? Did he have an absentee mother? Did he have mental problems? These questions are never answered. None of the questions justify what he did, but at least there would have been a reason why he did the things he did.
The ending:
It’s obvious who the writers want you to root for based on the point of view the movie is told from. Karen is allowed to follow Robert around constantly without getting caught. He could have had her arrested for harassment. If he were following her the same way, he would have been arrested. She’s even allowed to do something else to him, which I won’t reveal here. It’s not hard to figure out what she gets away with since the charges kept getting dropped and there was no other way for him to suffer for his crimes.
Final thoughts:
This movie is not necessarily for men. With the exception of Robert, they don’t get much to do. It also has a Lifetime movie feel to it. Despite all of that, I still found this movie to be interesting.
