Seeking Justice movie review & film summary (2012)
At which point, so early in the movie, I am asking myself: (1) Was Laura the victim of a random attack? (2) If so, how would Simon know all about the attacker only a few hours later the same evening? (3) If not, was the perp assigned to assault Laura as part of a larger plan? (4) Was the assault intended to provide a reason for Will to owe a favor to Simon? And my favorite: (5) Why the cockamamie signals with the chocolate bars? And (6) is either, or neither, of the men skulking about near the vending machines in on the scheme?
Because the movie has been directed with technical skill by Roger Donaldson, who has a lot of good movies to his name, we're inspired to care about such matters as the chocolate bars. Suspense is generated while Cage's fingers shake as he extracts dollar bills from his wallet. It builds as he steals sideways glances at the skulkers. (No one can glance sideways better than Nic Cage; remember how he stared down that shifty iguana in Warner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant"?) One chocolate bar is dispensed by the machine. He pushes in more bills. A second chocolate bar! Why two? So he won't be mistaken by someone else who coincidentally was buying only one chocolate bar from that exact same vending machine in the middle of the night? Why not play it safe and have him buy three? Also, if he wants in on the revenge plan, why not bypass the chocolate bar routine and simply reply, "OK, I'm in."
I ask because we never find out who was monitoring the chocolate sales, and my hopes were dashed when the chocolate bars were never required later in the movie — not even to be eaten! I was thinking maybe they'd have a message inside their wrappers.
Why do I carry on like this over such an early scene? Because all of "Seeking Justice" is constructed of such preposterous scenes. The only way to make sense of the movie is to conclude that an unlimited number of New Orleans citizens are in on the revenge scheme, are on call 24 hours a day and have nothing better to do than shadow Will Gerard. These people include the police, an investigative journalist, and several people Will doesn't trust or does trust but shouldn't. Despite the vast size of the conspiracy, which must require tens of thousands of dollars and unlimited man hours, I still never found out the whole story behind the revenge operation, or Simon's precise role on it.
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