"Eye for an Eye" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL January 13, 1996 Given the title and the previews, it seemed to me that "Eye for an Eye" would be just another cheap, violent, vengeance film with a woman as the vigilante. But, intrigued by the fact that it was directed by John Schlesinger, who's no slouch as a filmmaker, at the last minute I decided to go and I'm glad I did. It is a vengeance film, and it does contain a good bit of violence (though much less than most Hollywood action films). But at least its scenes of the killer/rapist at work are shot in such as way as to minimize the actual footage of the crimes we see on the screen. And it emphasizes, too, the consequences of the violence in terms of the victim's family. The plot, briefly, is that the teenage daughter of Karen and Mack McCann (Sally Field and Ed Harris) is raped and murdered. The police find and arrest the killer, a really vile piece of work named Robert Doob (played chillingly by Kiefer Sutherland) and have what appears to be conclusive DNA evidence against him, but he walks because of an error by the D.A.'s office in handling the evidence. Karen and Ed go to a support group for families whose children have been killed. There Karen makes friends with a Black lesbian (Charlayne Woodard) and she discovers that some members of the group are secretly plotting vigilante revenge killings of their children's murderers. Karen becomes obsessed with Doob and begins following him and learning his habits. When Doob kills again and gets away with it for lack of evidence, and then comes after the McCann's younger daughter at her school playground, Karen decides to go after him. She works out, takes self-defense classes, learns to use a gun. What's interesting is the change in her sense of self as she's doing this and moves from seeing herself as a potential victim to someone who has the ability to fight back. The scene where we see this shows her walking at night into a deserted parking garage and getting more and more frightened as she listens to a man's footsteps behind her. She hides behind a column jumps out and gives him a karate chop to the groin as he goes by. Of course she's chagrined and very apologetic when it turns out he's just some guy going to get his car. But women in the audience will understand why she smiles when the realization hits her that she doesn't need to be fearful in such situations anymore. Needless to say, Karen's plans for shooting Doob do not go smoothly for a variety of reasons, but these twists of the plot you need to see for yourself. This film raises some moral issues that need to be wrestled with. As feminist ethicist Clauda Card has written, as we deliberate about ethical questions we need to be careful that we don't turn into the very people we despise, in this case, turning a victim into a killer herself. One last word: I will be forever grateful to Schlessinger and screen writers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa for one particular aspect of this film--call it "The Revenge of Marion Crane." For thirty-five years women in our culture have been traumatized by the shower scene in "Psycho" where a woman at her most unsuspecting and vulnerable is brutally attacked by a murderer. Whenever lesser filmmakers want to terrorize women they can always throw in a visual allusion to that scene (Brian Di Palma, comes instantly to mind). In "An Eye for an Eye," the ghost of Hitchcock is finally exorcised in a brilliant use of visual symbolism. I loved it. There are some pretty negative reviews of this film around by male reviewers who attack it as manipulative and immoral. It is certainly plotted in such a way that the audience is bound to sympathize with Karen and despise Doob, and it does at least suggest that it might, in some circumstances, be o.k. to take justice into one's own hands. But I don't hear these critics making the same complaint when it's Charles Bronson instead of Sally Field getting the revenge. You have to wonder if this isn't just a cover for distaste of any film that centers on a woman who's able to level the playing field for once. For the Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film. Copyright 1996. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint or reproduce this review without the permission of the author: mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.