| Eye for an Eye | |
| Director: | John Schlesinger |
| Producer: | Michael I. Levy Michael Polaire Kathryn Knowlton (associate) |
| Screenplay: | Amanda Silver Rick Jaffa |
| Music: | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography: | Amir M. Mokri |
| Editing: | Peter Honess |
| Distributor: | Paramount Pictures |
| Runtime: | 101 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $20 million |
| Gross: | $26.9 million[1] |
Eye for an Eye is a 1996 American psychological thriller film, directed by John Schlesinger and written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. It stars Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, Ed Harris, Beverly D'Angelo, Joe Mantegna and Cynthia Rothrock. The story was adapted from Erika Holzer's novel of the same name. The film opened on January 12, 1996.
Karen (Sally Field) and Mack McCann (Ed Harris) are happily married with two daughters, seventeen-year-old Julie (from Karen's previous marriage) and six-year-old Megan. One afternoon while Karen is out shopping, Julie is violently raped and murdered, which Karen overhears on the phone. Detective Joe Denillo assures the McCanns there is enough DNA evidence to find and convict the killer, and encourages Karen to seek counselling.
At a support group, Karen meets other people who have suffered child bereavement, including Albert and Regina Gratz, and Sidney Hughes. During one meeting, Karen overhears Albert talking to Sidney about something which alarms Regina. Meanwhile, the DNA tests reveal Julie's killer to be Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland), a delivery driver with a criminal record. However, at a pre-trial hearing, the judge dismisses the case because the defense did not receive a sample of the evidence for testing. Karen and Mack are distraught as Doob walks free.
While Mack is desperate to get back to a normal life, Karen becomes increasingly obsessed with Doob. She starts tailing him around town, learning where he lives and monitoring his activity while he goes out on deliveries. She attempts to warn one of his regular customers, but the woman only speaks Spanish and does not understand her. Karen later learns that the murderer of the Gratzes' son has been killed in a drive-by shooting just days after being released from prison. Angel, another lady in the support group, tells Karen the best way to get over her grief is to focus on having good experiences with her surviving daughter.
When Doob discovers Karen is stalking him, he shows up at Megan's school when Karen comes to pick her up, and threatens to harm Megan if she continues following him. Worried for Megan's safety, and with her sanity declining, Karen approaches Sidney, who admits to setting up the drive-by shooting. After Karen demands his help, he agrees to plan a hit on Doob, on the condition that she has to carry it out, which Karen agrees to. She joins a self-defense class, which increases her confidence, helps rekindle her sex life with Mack, and improves her relationship with Megan. However, after Karen receives a revolver from Sidney, Angel confesses that she is an undercover FBI agent investigating vigilante activity within the support group, and warns her not to go through with the hit. Not wanting to be a murderer herself, Karen calls Sidney and cancels the hit.
Soon after, the woman Karen tried to warn is raped and murdered by Doob, and he is arrested. To Karen's outrage, he is freed yet again due to a lack of admissible evidence, and she decides to take matters into her own hands. While Mack intends to take the family on vacation, Karen deliberately orchestrates a work emergency as an alibi that forces her to stay behind, telling him and Megan to go on ahead of her. She then sneaks into Doob's apartment while he is away and trashes it, knowing that he will realize she was responsible. That evening, Doob breaks into Karen's home, but she surprises him with the revolver she received from Sidney, and the two struggle before Karen gains the upper hand and kills him.
When the police arrive, Denillo tells Karen that he is on to her, but since he is unable to prove that Doob's killing was premeditated, he decides to tell his colleague that Karen acted in self-defense. At the same time, Mack and Megan return home, having also caught on to Karen's plan, and see the police taking away Doob's dead body. Mack quietly comforts Karen, understanding what she has done.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 8% with an average rating of 3.6/10, based on 40 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Overwrought, thinly written, and all-around unpleasant, Eye for an Eye crudely exploits every parent's nightmare with deeply offensive results."[2] On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 25/100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[3] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[4] Roger Ebert gave the film one star (out of four), calling it "a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation" and writing that it "is intellectually corrupt because it deliberately avoids dealing with the issues it raises." Ebert also compared the film to Dead Man Walking, saying "Dead Man Walking challenges us to deal with a wide range of ethical and moral issues. Eye for an Eye cynically blinkers us, excluding morality as much as it can, to service an exploitation plot."[5] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Never in his varied career has Mr. Schlesinger made a film as mean-spirited and empty as this." She also felt "The sole purpose of Eye for an Eye is to excite blood lust from the audience".[6]