X
- 2019
- R
- Saban Films
- 1 h 31 m
- 2019
- R
- Saban Films
- 1 h 31 m
Summary A once abused woman, Sadie (Olivia Wilde), devotes herself to ridding victims of their domestic abusers while hunting down the husband she must kill to truly be free.
Directed By: Sarah Daggar-Nickson
- 2019
- R
- Saban Films
- 1 h 31 m
- 2019
- R
- Saban Films
- 1 h 31 m
A Vigilante
68
4.7
Where to Watch
Summary A once abused woman, Sadie (Olivia Wilde), devotes herself to ridding victims of their domestic abusers while hunting down the husband she must kill to truly be free.
Directed By: Sarah Daggar-Nickson
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
68
83% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
8% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
8% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
68
83% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
8% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
8% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
The evident smallness of the production belies its power to disturb. It's like one of those knives that are small enough to be hidden in a coat sleeve or the lip of a boot but that can still cut a man's throat.
A Vigilante succeeds not by exploiting torture, but instead shifting focus to Olivia Wilde's painful, so very real performance.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 25 User Ratings
4.7
36% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
32% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
32% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 25 User Ratings
4.7
36% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
32% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
32% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
Surprising for quality rather than innovation. Olivia Wilde delivers the best performance of her career in this small but rough film.
The film undoubtedly has problems and most of all because of its desperate attempt not to look like a film of the genre in which the storry obviously develops, but let's say that it's an aspect that can be ignored considering the direction that manages to sustain the narrative in general.
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After "Enough" and five "Death Wish" movies, the revenge genre is not without its recurring clichés, many of which get defrosted and microwaved again in A Vigilante. The point, if there is one, is that “heinous criminal felonies are acceptable if they are justified by a woman driven beyond the limits of reason.” As one battered wife says, “Every graveyard is full of people who didn’t make it.” The same is true of old movies gathering dust in Hollywood film vaults.
Daggar-Nickson gestures in certain directions, but for the most part she avoids deeper, troubling questions about retribution and violence. Instead, she concentrates on the genre basics, as in the movie’s admirably hard-core final face-off.
The two sides of A Vigilante are ultimately held together by Wilde’s ferocious performance — which swings between steely control and eruptive emotion — and by the way Dagger-Nickson frames nearly every moment from Sadie’s perspective.
But Wilde gives this woman her all. We see her with every freckles and imperfection showing on her cover girl face. And in the couple of scenes that require fight choreography, she handles herself well enough to be convincing.
It conspicuously tries to distance itself from the revenge film’s propensity toward florid excess.
A convincing job by Olivia Wilde, but I'm not sure what this film is trying to be. I get the feeling that somewhere there's someone waiting to explain, in detail, that this is how victims of domestic violence and violent trauma evolve, at least some of the time. And if this film were presented as a dramatization, then fine. As a film, though, it's slow. And just when we get to the scene where the final confrontation should occur our heroine Sadie hesitates, because, one might guess, she really just needs to be beaten one last time before she can pull the metaphorical trigger and deliver vigilante justice to her abuser.
So then another 15, 20 minutes and when the moment for justice arrives we're deprived of seeing exactly how Sadie overcomes the disadvantages of size and weight, and having a broken arm, to get her abuser into a position where she can, well . . . do what she needs to do.
And, ok, fine. The film doesn't want to indulge in gratuitous violence. But, you know, a film is a film and it needs to entertain and that's where this film falls short.
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Un film issu du mouvement « me too » dans lequel une ex-femme battue s’en va aider d’autres femmes battues en corrigeant sévèrement les maris indélicats et mal élevés : une justicière féministe en somme !
L’idée et les intentions sont louables et Olivia Wilde porte brillamment l’étendard et le rôle alors que son personnage n’en a d’ailleurs pas encore fini avec son ex-mari violent et taré, lequel ne perd rien pour attendre… bien au contraire.
Hélas, le film est très lent et décousu et ressemble davantage à un documentaire mal fichu qu’à un vrai film, fût-il de vengeances féminines… avec tous les poncifs que cela peut comporter, bien entendu. En vérité, le scénario est ici inexistant ou réduit à sa plus simple expression et d’autres films relevant du même thème sont infiniment plus intéressants que ce machin-là, poussif et lourdingue.
De fait, le film porte bien mal son nom, car le niveau de vigilance du spectateur est au plus bas… du début à la fin.
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(Mauro Lanari)
Violence against women and minors dealt with under the law of retaliation, yet two wrongs don't make a right. Olivia Wilde becomes the Charles Bronson of private justice: when feminism takes the worst of masculinity (like in "G.I. Jane," Ridley Scott 1997). In addition, filicide is always the responsibility of both parents.
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Awards
SXSW Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
American Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
Women Film Critics Circle Awards
• 1 Nomination
