Nicolas Cage is about this far away from being an exclusively direct-to-video actor. After "Trespass," his laughably bad thriller co-starring Nicole Kidman, more or less debuted on DVD, and his "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" seems destined for home video obscurity (at least if the early word is any indication), he seems to barely be hanging on to his theatrical presence. (What were "Season of the Witch" and "Drive Angry" if not direct-to-cable fodder that somehow found their way into multiplexes?) The latest embarassment: his revenge thriller "Seeking Justice" (formerly "The Hungry Rabbit Jumps" and released simply as "Justice" this fall in the U.K.), has now finally been picked up for release in March via Anchor Bay, a company most of us still know as the video company that made us buy 13 different versions of "Evil Dead II" on DVD.
The thriller, which co-stars January Jones and Guy Pearce, actually seems like it could be on the more enjoyable end of the Nic Cage spectrum of trash. It's directed by genre stalwart Roger Donaldson, who directed "No Way Out," "Species," and most recently the outrageously underrated "The Bank Job." It was produced by former Spider-Man Tobey Maguire and was shot by the reliable cinematographer David Tattersall ("The Green Mile"). Plus the plot, about a morally nebulous neighborhood watch group that helps Cage find the bad guy who assaulted his wife (Jones), sort of reminds us of the great Robert Forster/Fred Williams drive-in movie "Vigilante" (seriously, if you've never seen it, do).
"Seeking Justice" was originally bankrolled by Paramount (Momentum released it in the U.K., where it more or less disappeared without trace), so an Anchor Bay aquisition, which will probably include some kind of VOD component, is a big step backwards. It will surely be on home video a couple of months after its brief theatrical run. The announcement was made today by Bill Clark, president of Anchor Bay Entertainment, and reported in Variety.
Be the first to seek justice when "Seeking Justice" opens on March 16th.