Vengeance: A Love Story (2017)

I can see why this film did note score well as it has lots of fall downs, but as a film its worth watching. If you accept the fact its all been done before and it panders to both cage and Johnson's ego's you will enjoy it, the daughter and mother will make you smile, chuckle and cry, cry a lot. Cage is trying to stay relevant in films but is still acting like its 2000. Don Johnson, 1991, love them both as icons. Once you admit that this is a Nick Cage produced film and enjoy it as a story, it actually is a good film.

Fmovies: I love Nicolas Cage. He has had some great movies and some duds because he marches to a different drummer. The only reason for this movie to exist is because someone was in love with "Teena". And Don Johnson did it because he could wear some nice suits and drive off on a Harley. Don't waste your time.

This movie showed great potential in the very beginning. There were good characters and great plot development. Then it just fell flat. I guess the vengeance was supposed to be due to the connection between the detective and the victim, but I never felt any connection between them. The actual vengeance was poorly developed and the ending was pretty lame. There are better movies to watch.

Vengeance: A Love Story fmovies. Vengeance: A Love Story is based on the book Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates, and it makes a difference. Cage plays John Dromoor – a Niagara Falls hero cop and Purple-Heart-awarded Desert Storm veteran, who takes a personal interest in a case when a young single mother is gang-raped. While the story doesn't look quite original and the vigilante cop theme isn't even an strange role for Cage, this movie is not just another run-of-the-mill vigilante movie. True, it focuses more on the vigilante part than the book (probably the reason for the change in titles), but this is a story about rape all the same, not vengeance.

As such, it's darker, slower but also better compared to similar movies. The story is well put together, though the aftermath and the effects of the lives of Teena and Bethie could have been a little more fleshed out, and similarly some of the other main characters, notably the judge and Don Johnson's lawyer character.

The acting is good. Cage is good, his usual, but slower, a bit more withdrawn. Don Johnson's performance as an unscrupulous lawyer oozes slime (good role-casting) and Talitha Bateman puts on a good performance as the daughter. Sadly, the final third falls quite flat, and I blame mostly the title. If you make a movie about vengeance, than put a bit more effort in it. While more realistic than Cage's usual wise- cracking one-liners, the movie builds up to a momentum that never really arrives, as he coldly and efficiently disposes of the perps. But overall, this is a decent movie, just don't expect a blood soaked, bullet-riddled vigilante movie.

I'm being generous with a score of three, mainly due to the acting of Talitha Bateman. Nick Cage is about as convincing a cop as his hair color. He plays a vigilante detective chasing down a gang of rapists. Actually chasing down isn't quite the right term. He appears, by magic, in some scenes, almost at will, always being in the right place at the right time and we never see how he actually gets there - possibly by accessing worm-holes. Everything about this movie is bad; the script is atrocious; there is no character development, the whole cast is guilty of overacting, or being dull as dishwater, some are just wrongly cast and bad actors. To prove my point, the second-best actor in the movie was a dead cat. The entire story line is not believable, the court process is clearly directed by someone who has never been inside a court and it has no credibility. The make-up is shocking, sets are under-budgeted. It looks as though all the money went into Don Johnson's wardrobe, hair and make-up. The extras are shocking, even by non-actors. Watch for the lady reporter / photographer in beige, when the mother of our bunch of losers speaks to the press. It looks like she's never held a camera before. Despite the crime being as serious as it was, it attracts about 8 reporters and some guy with a 1970's TV camera. Despite there being a vigilante out there, none of the crimes are investigated. I know Nicholas Cage is still a credible actor, but he's going to have to start choosing better scripts - I can only suppose that he's broke. I guess Nicholas must be, given the coffee cup advertisement placement for Ikea. I get the feeling Don Johnson got the Harley. In short, if you are looking for a good film, with good script, acting, story line, make-up, lighting, editing.... don't choose this one. There is nothing new about this story, nothing interesting about it - I just cannot recommend it to anyone. Even the title is wrong - there is no love story? Maybe they just wanted to get extra movie-goers. The worst crime about this movie, is that it was ever made.

Cage is his usual self. Not as cringy as lately, actually tolerable. The movie could have been good, but it is not. I suspect some other reviewers to be in the movie industry...or they just haven't seen that many movies yet. I give it 4 stars because the young girl is really good and the beautiful mother could have been edited to be excellent....BUT, this movie is the prime example of how NOT to edit a movie. Some of the scenes are waaay to long and downright unnecessary. But some of the cuts are so long (the mother in the hospital scene with cage) that it makes the actors look like overacting imbeciles. In one scene the beautiful mother goes through 5-6 moods/expressions. From scarred, confused, elated, relieved to sad and tormented relieved again...in the same cut. And at the end, the dialogue follows the two actors by way to rapid cutting. I have never thought about editing before in my life...but this opened my eyes to the importance of that job. Got through about an hour, and just had to quit. I will think long and hard before I rent another Cage movie.