
But he eventually accepts the case and heads back to Texas. Naturally he’s apprehensive about taking the case on, as he left behind Galveston twenty years ago and doesn’t really want to return. Mrs Johnson wants Carson to track down her wealthy aunt who was last seen in an asylum in Galveston, Texas, which happens to be Carson’s hometown. He’s also originally from Texas but lives in Los Angeles, and is approached by a woman named Mrs Johnson (Julie Lott) who brings him an interesting case. Carson likes to smoke, drink and gamble, much like other hard-boiled cops we’re used to seeing on screen. Set in the 1970s, the film definitely follows a well-known formula. Ed Harris, Joe Mategna and Beverly D'Angelo (as Karen's business partner) are derivative characters reduced to the shallowest of line readings, and several potentially interesting sub-stories featuring Angel and Sidney are abandoned when convenient.Įye For An Eye is predictable revenge fare, arriving late to the party and leaving next to no impression.Inspired by film noir, Francesco Cinquemani and George Gallo’s thriller Eye for An Eye (also known as The Poison Rose) follows Carson Phillips (John Travolta), an ex-football star turned PI who takes on a missing person’s case. This is a film in which nothing will be known about Doob's backstory, and most of the strong supporting cast is wasted. Doob taunting Karen and Mack in the courtroom after the case against him is thrown out is a classic piece of despicable behaviour.īut the weaknesses of the material are quickly apparent. Sally Field dominates the film and delivers a committed performance, while Kiefer Sutherland does his part by creating in Robert Doob a truly hate-worthy piece of white trash, a psychopath driven by the basest animal instincts to copulate and kill. Forcing Karen McCann to listen-in over a cell phone as her daughter is assaulted adds to the sense of a parent's helplessness and increases the justification for her fury. The film does try, and Schlesinger raises the violence quotient by ensuring that the two rape and murder scenes are harrowing and painful to watch. 45 (1981), squeezed the concept dry a good 15 years before Eye For An Eye.
#An eye for an eye film movie
That movie and all its sequels and imitators, including women revenge fantasies in such fare as Ms. The urbanite victim frustrated by the justice system and deciding to turn to vigilantism is at least as old as Charles Bronson in Death Wish (1974). But Karen will learn that extracting revenge is much more difficult than she imagined.ĭirected by John Schlesinger and adapted from the Erika Holzer novel, Eye For An Eye has above-average talent working with below average material. In desperation, Karen turns to a group of grieving parents who appear to be facilitating vigilante justice, including Sidney Hughes (Philip Baker Hall).

She tracks Doob's movements and begins to suspect that he is about to rape and murder again. She joins a victim support group where she befriends the sympathetic Angel Kosinsky (Charlayne Woodard), and secretly starts plotting to take justice into her own hands. But Doob escapes justice on a technicality and is released, infuriating Karen. Detective Joe Denillo (Joe Mantegna) arrests lowlife delivery man Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland), and with strong DNA evidence linking him to the crime, a conviction appears likely. On the day of Megan's birthday, a home intruder violently rapes and kills Julie. Karen and Mack McCann (Sally Field and Ed Harris) have two daughters, teenager Julie (Olivia Burnette) and the much younger Megan (Alexandra Kyle).
#An eye for an eye film tv
A mother's vigilante justice drama, Eye For An Eye works hard to raise a sweat but remains just one notch above TV movie fare.
