Too raw for my taste

Rating: 5/10 (10 March 2006)

You really need a strong stomach to see this movie. Many movies have violence but this one has it in "spades". Normal human beings feel revulsion over killing and everything in this movie is focused to make you feel that revulsion and that's my point: The director has gone too far in emphasizing the killing. There were at least 16 people killed including one particularly gruesome scene where several fingers and an ear were amputated.
The plot is simple: Denzel Washington is hired to protect a 10 year old girl, Dakota Fanning, from kidnapping. Despite his best efforts, the little girl is kidnapped. Washington takes his revenge by killing all the kidnappers.
Any adult, but especially parents, immediately understand Washington's rage over the kidnapping and his obsessive desire for revenge: Washington tracks down and eliminates all the kidnappers, one by one. His methods however, are brutal beyond description and that's what is so hard to stomach, at least for me.
The acting is acceptable. Dakota Fanning is charming as a 10 year old. I would have liked to see Washington emote just a bit more. He shows his natural warmth only in scenes with Fanning. The two actors who play the parents, Marc Anthony and Radha Mitchell, are deserving of special mention. Their roles were not large but they filled them admirably.
I didn't feel that I could give this movie more than a 5 because of the excess and florid violence.