Eye for an Eye

Eye for an Eye is the movie directed by John Schlesinger. It is a criminal drama, triller, essay topics about review, starring such great actors as Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland and Ed Harris. Eye for an Eye is based on the novel by Erica Holzer and tells us the story about one rich woman who is happily married, lives in a beautiful house, has two daughters, one of them is from her previous marriage, and works in a museum. It all seems like a fairytale, isn’t it?

It was all a fairytale until one day the world of the main heroine Karen had shattered. Everything turned out into one scary nightmare, when Karen’s seventeen years old daughter was raped and murdered. Even though the detective assured Karen that they had enough DNA to find a killer that she had to meet with people that suffered the similar situations that they already found this criminal, Karen did not believe that the police would get her daughter’s killer. Unfortunately, she was almost right, when the judge at the court dismissed the case and the killer, who was accused not only in killing her daughter, but a lot of other people, just walked out the court being absolutely free. Karen’s husband decided to move on, when his wife couldn’t think about anything else, but about her dead daughter and the released killer Doob. Although being so focused on the death of her daughter, Karen almost forgot that she had another daughter too. Meanwhile Doob, the killer, has got to the school of Karen’s younger daughter Megan and talked to some other girl. He purposefully was waiting for Karen, so he could sort of tease and intimidate her. Being scared for the other daughter, Karen had started making the vengeance scenario on her own. She enrolled to the self-defenseless classes. Although Karen’s friends from supporting group didn’t believe that Karen could actually kill someone. However, she changed her mind, when one of her customer was also raped and killed in way her daughter was. Karen decided then to lure Doob in her house and to kill him there. She thought it would not look like a murder, but more like a self-defense. She actually managed to kill her daughter’s killer and when the detective with the police came to her house, he witnessed in Karen’s favor. Eye for an Eye ends with a scene where Karen was sitting with her husband, and even though he had known what she has done, he still hold her hand.

Eye for an Eye movie is a great example of the revenge. It also has opened to the society one of the most troubled topic – the need of death penalty for such killers like Doob. This movie looks like a simple one without any unexpected surprises and yet it has several points and several themes one needs to think about. Eye for an Eye touches one of the most problematic ethic principles – justice, when one creepy judge cares more about some silly details of the case and not justice itself. All viewers see according to this exact principle is the Sutherland’s character always walks away from punishment even after committing another murder. Moreover, the other interesting thing in this movie is that not a father turns into avenger, but his wife, a mother, a woman. It appears that a woman, a civilized person is the one who can prove justice over this murderer. Another ethic principle one can find in this movie is the expression of love. The final scene is the great example of it, when even though husband knows what his beloved has done, he is with her, and he understands her.

Eye for an Eye is a movie without surprises or any specific sort of colors, but this is a thriller that is worth watching, discussing, and thinking over the issues presented in the movie.