Review: I Am Wrath

John Travolta’s wife Rebecca De Mornay (hopefully well-paid for her 7 minutes) is killed one day in what looks to be a mugging gone horribly wrong. Travolta (who witnessed the event but was unable to do a damn thing) gets no real help from the cops (one played by Sam Trammell), so he calls in a favour from an old friend (Christopher Meloni) from their somewhat shadowy and violent past, and sets about getting to the bottom of this himself. Patrick St. Esprit plays the spineless local governor who is clearly as trustworthy  as…well, a politician I guess. Elisha Cuthbert lookalike Amanda Schull plays Travolta’s grown daughter.

 

I guess it could be worse. I mean, this 2016 urban justice flick could’ve starred Nic Cage chewing the scenery instead of John Travolta, according to what I’ve read. Still, this return to the director’s chair by Chuck Russell (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, “The Mask”, “Eraser”) for the first time in 14 years isn’t my kind of genre film and offers no surprises. It’s the same urban vigilante film as the rest, except the politicians and cops are even more useless than usual here.

 

Travolta’s actually good in this, and Christopher Meloni is fun support (Sam Trammell is solid as well), but even if you like this sort of thing, the message is awfully muddled. In fact, as soon as you find out that the cops are loathsome and corrupt, you realise that the message isn’t important to Russell and screenwriter Paul Sloan (who has a supporting role as well). With a title that sounds like a kick-arse latter-day brooding Van Damme flick, it’s actually just another wannabe “Taken” (with a little “Death Wish” and “Hard to Kill” thrown in) that wastes the genuinely committed performance by Travolta. He may be way too fat for an action hero, but he grieves far less melodramatically than Cage would’ve. It’s mediocre schlock. In “Death Wish”, Charles Bronson was a bleeding heart liberal who changed his tune after a personal tragedy. Here, we aren’t told what Travolta’s political leanings are (though thankfully he’s not just a humble architect), just that he’s a former professional of the ‘killing people dead’ sort. Yet, we see TV footage concerning rising gun violence and a shit weasel politician doing fuck-all about it, so it’s an anti-gun film, right? Well, Christopher Meloni does tell Travolta not to seek violent retribution…right before he gives Travolta the details on where to find the bad guys. And then he joins him on the mission (Meloni is surprisingly credible as an action guy, by the way). So yeah…this isn’t a message movie. At all. I mean, guns and people who shoot guns are the issue, not politicians and corrupt cops. Yes, it’s more complicated than that (mental health issues, for instance), but this film clouds the issue unnecessarily because it’s ultimately not interested in the issue.

 

Well-shot, well-acted to the service of a frankly run-of-the-mill vigilante film with a confused (and half-arsed) message. The action is fine, Russell’s direction is fine, but original choice William Friedkin’s direction probably would’ve been fine, too. It’s the script that fails to deliver. This one’s only for the most desperate fans of this sort of thing, of which I’m the furthest thing from (though I did like “John Wick” and I love “Hard to Kill”). Stupid, pretentious ending too. 

 

Rating: C