Mark Reviews Movies: A VIGILANTE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 28, 2019

Olivia Wilde's tough and bold performance nearly elevates A Vigilante, although the movie itself comes close to elevating this material on its own. Even without Wilde's portrayal of a survivor of domestic abuse, who channels her rage and grief into righteous violence against abusers, writer/director Sarah Daggar-Nickson does not simply settle for making a gimmicky revenge thriller.

As Wilde's Sadie physically confronts men and women who harm their family members, the screenplay pauses to show the effects of abuse on survivors—even those who have escaped. The screenplay gives us a somewhat fragmented timeline of her story. In the present, Sadie lives in hotel rooms and in her car, waiting for phone calls from people who need help freeing themselves from an abusive relationship.

She resorts to violence when necessary, although stopping short of killing abusers. As payment, she only asks food, whatever money someone can spare, and the promise to pass along her information to others in a similar situation.

In the past, she has found her way to a women's shelter, after getting free of her husband. Her history might seem to be the most important detail to this story, but Daggar-Nickson avoids revealing Sadie's back story until it's absolutely necessary for the plot. Instead, through group counseling sessions, the filmmaker relies on the stories of other women to relate the excruciating experience of living through abuse, the thinking that previously prevented them from leaving, and the lingering aftereffects of it.

It's through these stories that we come to understand Sadie's pain, anger, and mourning, well before the screenplay makes the specifics of her history explicit. Wilde communicates all of it with fearlessness in moments of solitude, confrontation, and compassion.

Once we learn the details of Sadie's past, though, the movie unfortunately loses its own bearings and moves into routine. It's more than a bit disheartening to see the emotional complexity of the character evaporate as a standard action-oriented climax emerges, forcing Sadie to face the cause of her pain.

There's also something unnerving about the handling of that extended sequence. After A Vigilante spends so much time examining the suffering of abuse and the challenges of escaping it, it's unfortunate that the movie's straightforward showdown focuses so much on violence perpetrated against the protagonist, as if all of that pain is only excuse to show more of it.

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