Kelly Dolen’s John Doe: Vigilante premiered in US cinemas last Friday and was met with largely negative reviews which branded it as shrill, gory and pseudo-intellectual.
Main Street Films launched the thriller starring Battlestar Galactica’s Jamie Bamber as John Doe, a self-styled vigilante who is on trial for 33 murders, on 20 screens in California, Colorado and Arizona.
The screenplay by Stephen M. Coates follows a vigilante group called Speak for the Dead which supports Doe’s cause while he’s in prison, igniting a debate about justice versus vengeance. Lachy Hulme (Offspring, Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story, The Matrix Revolutions) plays a reporter who is trying to uncover the true story about Doe.
Produced by Screen Corp’s James M. Vernon and Kristy Vernon, Keith Sweitzer and David Lightfoot, the film will debut in Australia on May 1 via Monster Pictures.
“When TV’s Dexter, the serial killer who targets other killers, left the airwaves last fall, he left plenty of room for copycats,” said the Los Angeles Times critic Inkoo Kang. “Into that void strides John Doe: Vigilante, a pseudo-intellectual exercise in bombast and glorified violence. “The fatal flaw of John Doe is its focus on ideas, rather than people. The protagonist’s victims are so cartoonishly evil they might as well be twirling their moustaches before being shot in the head. John Doe’s sanctimonious speeches are equally weightless; only his self-righteous fury registers. In this case, anger speaks louder than words.”
By Don Groves INSIDEFILM [Mon 24/03/2014
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