Eye for an Eye

Plot synopsis:
Karen McCann(Sally Field),Is A Woman With Everything To Live For. She Is Happily Married To Mack(Ed Harris),And Has 2 Daughters,17-year old,Julie(Olivia Burnette), And Six-year old Megan(Alexandra Kyle). She Lives In A Nice House In Santa Monica,California,And Has A Good Job In A Museum. However,Her World Is Shattered When Julie Is Violently Raped And Murdered. Karen Tries To Maintain Normality For Megan's Sake-But She Finds Herself Obsessed With Bringing Her Daughter's Killer To Justice.Detective Sergent Joe Denillo(Joe Mantegna),Assures Karen That There Is Enough DNA Evidence To Help Catch The Killer. He Also Encourages Her To Seek Counseling,And Her Husband Agrees. The Next Day Denillo Tells Karen That DNA Tests Have Revealed The Killer As Robert Doob(Kiefer Sutherland),A Supermarket Delivery Man With A Criminal Record. At The Trail, It Is Clear Doob Is Gulity,However,Due To The Fact That The Defense Was Promised A Sample Of The DNA On Which They Could Perform Their Own Tests They Did Not Receive,It Forces The Judge To Dismiss The Case. Karen And Mack Are Dumbstruck As Doob Walks Away As A Free Man. Karen Sets A Trap To Lure Doob Into Her Home, So That She Can Say The Killing Was In Self-Defense. It Works. After Karen Shoots Doob Dead And Calls The Police,Denillo Arrives And Tells Karen That He Knew The Truth And Hasn't Fooled Him. He Tells His Colleague That It Was A "Clear Case Of Self-Defense".

Tags: violence, revenge, murder, sadist

Review:
But Karen isn't done with him yet; she will do whatever she can in her power 'til there is justice for her daughter and another victim of his.I loved "Eye for an Eye", it's a terrific movie that is very well acted.
I cried during this movie, during the scene where Karen is on the phone with her daughter, Julie while she is being raped by Robert.
He tries so hard to put the family back together after the shattering aftermath of Julie's death and wishes Karen would come back to herself with Megan."Eye for an Eye" is a great movie that should be given a chance.
When the woman she tried to warn is murdered by Robert, Karen plots a scheme to get rid of the killer."Eye for an Eye" is a dramatic thriller with a great story of justice and revenge.
Sally Fields does a good job with this movie as a revenge seeking mother of a teenage daughter who's been raped and murdered.
I wanted to reach thru the screen and strangle Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland, who should of won a best supporting actor award) the cocky, cold, malicious killer, who had no respect for human life and thought he was above the law!
That's what he does in this film, as "Robert Doob," a low-life who rapes and kills Sally Field's daughter and then is unfairly released by the courts.
Sally, playing "Karen McCann," goes after justice.Almost everyone loves a revenge story and that, of course, is what this movie is, pure and simple: kind of a female "Death Wish."As for the characters, Sutherland is "over the top" with his guy - way, way past despicable, so ridiculously bad and evil you might even laugh.For those who picture Sally Field as "The Flying Nun," this movie will be a shock.
The thing that spoiled the story for me and just made the whole thing implausible was ed harris and ed harris alone........i cannot imagine a father whose daughter is violently raped and murdered acting in such a blaze' or indifferent and completely detached manner.........he was absolutely blank about it and acted pretty much as if nothing unusual happened in his life.........as opposed, say, to sean penn in mystic river reacting to the same situation (outstanding believability) i have never thought much of harris' quirky and bizarre acting style until i realized he is just a terrible actor, that there is no real style to think about and this is a good example of that blankness and absence of emotion..........they would have gotten a better performance out of someone who just happened by the set.Harris' performance here, as in many of his performances was without substance..
This film is about a mother who goes to seek justice for the brutal murder of her teenage daughter."Eye for an Eye" is an intense drama that tells a family's grief in losing a teenage girl in the family.
Karen McCann's (Sally Field) daughter gets brutally murdered, and the legal system is helpless on putting the murderer away.
In my opinion this is one of Keifer Sutherlands best and underrated roles.He plays a terrific villain here ,so much it makes me wonder why he does not do more roles like this.He is so convincing and his stage presence is immpecable.The movie itself didn't do an awful lot for me but again Sutherland is the real star here .Another role he played similar to this was Truth and consequences New Mexico .He looks exactly like he does in this and plays a perfect bad guy.I have always claaified Sutherland with actors like Ray Liota and Micheal Keaton because they are amazing actors who don't get the right roles.They all play spectacular villains and for some reason they never do enough of them.This movie is great in the way it highlights Sutherlands best features as a actor and as a character you love to hate..
Still, Sally Field is, as always, immediate and bracing as a mother mourning the murder of her daughter, later stalking the man who killed her (let out of prison on one of those movie technicalities).
For me, this film started badly, with merely a terrible script and hammy acting from the ever distressed and irritating Sally Field, and quickly spiralled down to a morally repugnant finale.Maybe I should have guessed from the title.
I spent the entire film wondering who I was supposed to be sympathising with, because I cannot become attached and empathise with anyone who is so hell-bent on revenge and destruction, Kiefer Sutherland was truly evil and so I was left purely feeling for the rest of her family (Ed Harris was great as ever), who she neglected in order to partake in her little obsessive Death Wish fantasy, and who were the true victims of the story.At least Death Wish voiced the counter arguments against vigilantism throughout the film and Bronson was given something of a reprimand at the end, whereas here the FBI agent is somewhat discredited and she is seen to get off scott free.
I like Kiefer Sutherland in his various movies and he does a fine job (even if slightly over the top here) of being creepy.So let's talk film content.
One of director John Schlesinger's weaker efforts, it tells the story of a mother (Sally Field) whose daughter was brutally raped and murdered, and attempts to take matters into her own hands when her daughter's killer (Kiefer Sutherland) is released from jail on a technicality.There's a lot that's wrong with this film.
Sutherland as the tauting murderer was the stereotypical role he's played for many years and his performance did not have any other dimension but evil.I will admit that the scenes where Field's character is on her cell phone and is unable to help her daughter was very suspenseful but at the same time I found it to be very brutal and sadly, from a major filmmaker like John Schlesinger, very exploitive.
If you are feeling like some "kill the bad guys because they are pure evil and deserve to die" then see an old Charles Bronson film instead.
"Eye for an Eye" (1996): Starring Sally Field, Ed Harris, Kiefer Sutherland, Beverly D'Angelo, and Joe Mantegna.
Sally Fields is great as a person torn over how to go on, Ed Harris does his classic stoic/occasionally almost emotional role, Joe Mantegna is very good as a hard working cop, and Kiefer Sutherland is great as a true sociopath.
Fields plays a woman whose daughter has been raped and murdered by the sneering Sutherland who is so evil he not only rapes and murders twice in the film but he pours hot coffee on a dog.
The late director John Schlesinger played it safe with one of his final films, which will promise to bore and completely not satisfy you to the bitter end.Where did Eye for an Eye go wrong?
It was pathetic to see name actors like Ed Harris, Sally Field, Phillip Baker Hall, Keith David, and Kiefer Sutherland walk through this film like it was a fly in the pan.
It lent nothing to the cinematic world except (and I stress this a bit) another peg in a very tired genre known as the "Revenge Thriller".After watching this film I said to my wife that I thought Sally Field was completely over-dramatic throughout the course of it, overplaying the small parts and completely exploding the bigger elements, which made me think of a High School drama production.
That, coupled with the poor acting, just created a film that didn't catch my attention and fully contributed nothing to the cinematic world.Overall, in case it wasn't obvious, this wasn't a good movie at all.
Sally Field once again, as in NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER, exploits a hot-button topic to make a movie that beats us over the head; the only subtle scene is when she's racing through traffic when she gets cut off from her daughter on the phone and fears the worst.
If his character had been better developed, and less dialog between Sally Field and Ed Harris the movie would have benefited.
The plot is ok, although there is no way that the suspect (Keifer Sutherland) would have had his case dismissed at the very beginning of the movie based just on the technicality of the defence not having been given evidence up front - it would have gone further than that given that the DNA evidence was strong.Sally Field is ok - but her acting is a bit forced at times.
This One is a Trashy, Gut-Turning Movie that is So Over Emotional and Underwritten it Wavers Between Cathartic and Crass Exploitation.A Very Good Cast Highlighted by Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland, All of the Other A-Listers are Wasted, the Most Obvious is Ed Harris.
This by-the-numbers thriller spends so much of its 101 minutes making Sutherland's character utterly hateful that you can almost forgive Sally Field's murderous rampage.
In my opinion, Sally Field, Ed Harris, and Kiefer Sutherland gave dazzling performances as a grieving mother, cocky killer, and alienated husband.
If one of my children got murdered and the killer was set free on the same kind of technicality that Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland) was, I'd probably do the same thing Karen (Sally Field) did.
To those of you who are fans of Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, or Ed Harris, if you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend it.
Sally Field is good but it's Keifer Sutherland that makes it great!
Im partial to this because i like Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland, and i felt that they played their performances well.
I, myself, had not heard of this underrated gem until I was surfing IMDb.com one evening and immediately thought this would be worth buying  I was right.When her daughter (Olivia Burnette) is brutally raped and murdered, and the murderer (Kiefer Sutherland) is released on a technicality, Karen McCann (Sally Field) decides to take the law into her own hands  Directed skilfully by the late John Schlesinger, this darkly riveting thriller will push every parent's maternal/paternal instincts button.After touching performances in 'Sybil' and 'Steel Magnolias' and hilarious performances in 'Mrs. Doubtfire', Sally Field once again delivers a terrific and emotional performance throughout as the grieving mother, determined to seek revenge.
I don't know how many criminals, bullies, and perverts this guy is going to play until it turns into a farce, but there wasn't a whole lot going for this character except (besides looking like Kiefer Sutherland) callousness and cruelty.
In a nutshell he brutally rapes Sally Field's daughter and she sets out for revenge after he gets off in court..
But if he shot the rapist right from the start there would be no movie..The funniest part of the movie is watching the camera follow Kiefer's character through his "stomping grounds" In a world where even someone you know could be a rapist (anyone hear of date rape)Hollywood still feels the night to present the bad guy who lives in a flat over a pawnshop stereotype.
He kicks cans, pours hot coffee on cats, and chain smokes...ok..like we didn't get he was bad from the minute he raped the girl.Everytime we go to "the hood" rap music starts playing...by this point nothing surprised me...and I was able to pretty much predict the rest of the movie...Sally meet bad guy...the confront each other...and then their is a finale...conclusion......whatever.....
Whereas "Mystic River" gets you behind the scenes,leaving you guessing who done it.I say this film would've been better if it were a mystery not as a sensationalized revenge/drama flick that points out to middle-aged women "When all else fails...buy a gun and use it!!You see, with the exception of airport disaster movies; I hate murder/revenge movies (unless you're Jean-Claude Van Damme).
"Like Why?, How?, and What?" Don't give me that news media fear-mongering-type plot premise bullsh*@t...."A killer attacks your daughter in your home!" "What are they going to say film at 11, next?" This is where revenge movies are very annoying and disturbing.Why was the killer attracted to this particular residence?
It could've been better if Sutherland's character (had been former employee of the parents or chat room buddy of the daughters) kidnaps the teenager out of revenge and holds her for ransom then kills her...then would this movie have credibility.
It seems no person involved in the writing, shooting, editing, and continuity of this film knows anything about French, but put a scene in the beginning of the film where Sally Field's character corrects her daughter's French.
Sally Field was completely believable in this unsettling movie and she delivers the goods and then some.
Parents Sally Field and Ed Harris have their young daughter brutally raped and murdered in their own home one day by psychopath Kiefer Sutherland.
Leading star Sally Field plays mother Karen McCann, a loving and devoted mother who while stuck in a hectic traffic jam receives the news via cell phone that her teenage daughter (Olivia Burnette)has been raped and murdered by some deranged lunatic.
Ed Harris and Joe Mantegna show wonderful performances in their brief roles, but Sally Field carries the film through as a woman obsessed with getting even with this psychopath on the loose.Though it flows as a standard fare, Schlesinger makes sure that the pace is fast and the tensity at a heart-pulsing rate.
Comfort does not mean as much as life, and every second counts.There is also the fact that, other than two brief scenes, I never once felt like Sally's character cared a thing for her daughter.
The victim's mother becomes obsessive after her daughter gets murdered, but the film never wants to show that she could just murder the bad guy and get easily away with murder.
Films of this type cannot be effective just by telling a story.Sadly, this was a complete waste of Sally Field's enormous talent, which was on show again in this movie.
~Contains Spoilers~If you are a fan of Sally field or Kiefer Sutherland you will certainly enjoy this movie.It all starts off with young Julie Mc Can. A stranger breaks into her house when her parents aren't home and rapes/murders her in a brutal way.The scene is pretty graphic so if you are a person who is disturbed easily by that kind of violence, you may not want to watch this.The most disturbing part of this is that she is on the phone with her mother (Sally Field) whenever she is being attacked.
Finally whenever Robert Doob (Sutherland) is released on some kind of technicality, Karen decides to take the law into her own hands, especially when the Doob rapes and murders another woman.So with working out, taking defense classes, and learning how to use a gun, she sets a trap for doob.The conclusion is really good, and the movie is never really boring at any point.
After hearing her daughter being brutally raped and murdered, a mother, Karen (Sally Field), must deal with her grief while the killer (Kiefer Sutherland) walks after a mistake by the DA's office sets him free.
I've never seen such an evil bad guy in any Kiefer roles as this one and as much as I love this man, by the end of the film I was rooting for Sally Fields to kill the jerk.
I can't imagine what Sutherland used for motivation, if anything, to play this part and I don't know if I want to know.At the end of the day, I liked this film.
At the END of the movie, Kiefer Sutherland's fall from the stairs to on top of Sally Field is obviously fake/discontinued.
Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, Ed Harris, Joe Montegna.
This movie had quite a big premise: a brutally raped and murdered daughter, a despicable criminal, a fallible justice system and a mother who decides to take matters into her own hands.
It should not come as a big surprise that after reading its brief description, I was expecting a very emotionally-charged movie dealing with a particularly difficult subject.Now, I understand that the creators of the movie wanted to ensure that transformation of Karen McCann (Sally Field) from grief-stricken mother who relies on the justice system to well, exert justice (ergo keep evildoers behind bars), to a strong female lead who decides to protect others and her daughter's memory by making sure that said evildoer (Kiefer Sutherland) will never harm anyone else.
I don't believe there's a mother out there that wouldn't identify with Sally Field in this movie and want to choke the life out of Keiffer Sutherland's character with her bare hands.I thought all the actors were excellent and their characters pretty well thought out.
The main stars in the film Eye For an Eye are, Ed Harris, Sally Fields, and Kiefer Sutherland.
Harris and Fields play the role of Mack and Karen Mc Cann, the parents of a murdered daughter.
One of the things that I liked about the film was how the director John Schlesinger brought humor to a sad movie when the aunt slipped and fell on the toy truck when the family was over after the daughters death.
Kiefer Sutherland (the hooligan) is the best in acting while Ed Harris and Sally Field do their jobs modestly..
Eye for an Eye (1996): Dir: John Schlesinger / Cast: Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, Ed Harris, Joe Mantegna, Beverly D'Angelo: An ugly portrayal of retaliation that manipulates viewers with its justifications.
Therefore I see this movie's problem, if it has one, is its desire to please all (except Kiefer Sutherland's fans, and his character's likes in real world !).It's all in that Hollywood happy ending that wants only to make you leave your seat wholly satisfied.
It could have been 30 minutes long, 15 to set up the premise that Sutherland's character is a despicable killer who will keep murdering and get off, including Field's daughter, and the last 15 minutes to show how she finally disposes of him.