CinemaSerf

It's odd to see Sally Field with grittier role, and she isn't half bad here as the mother who has to listen on the telephone as her seventeen year old daughter is raped and murdered. "Karen" and husband "Mack" (Ed Harris) are further devastated when an administrative cock-up causes the apprehended assailant to be released on an technicality. Bent on revenge, she learns how to handle herself, and a gun - intent on achieving what the law couldn't. Kiefer Sutherland ("Doob") is the pretty unsavoury man upon who she sets her sights. The premiss of vengeance here ought to have provided for a more robust framework for this drama, but sadly the direction meanders and the film quickly loses the pace is starts with. There is a convincing vulnerability to Miss Field's performance, she plays the desperate mother well. Harris and Sutherland, however, feature far too sparingly with the latter simply failing to inject any menace into the proposition. Though violent at times, it strays all too often into melodrama territory and ends pretty much as you expect right from the outset. Sadly, this is really not much better than a mediocre television thriller that I doubt I will recall next week.