''Seeking Justice'' (also known as ''Justice'', and formerly titled ''The Hungry Rabbit Jumps'') is a 2011

action thriller film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

starring

Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Nicolas Cage, various accolades, including an Academy A ...

, January Jones and

Guy Pearce Guy Edward Pearce (born 5 October 1967) is an Australian actor. List of awards and nominations received by Guy Pearce, His accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award, and nominations for an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy Film Aw ...

directed by

Roger Donaldson Roger Lindsey Donaldson (born 15 November 1945) is an Australian and New Zealand film director, screenwriter, and producer. His 1977 debut film, ''Sleeping Dogs (1977 film), Sleeping Dogs'', is considered landmark work of Cinema of New Zealand ...

and produced by

Tobey Maguire Tobias Vincent Maguire (born 27 June 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for starring as Peter Parker (2002 film series character), Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in film#Sam Raimi's trilogy, ''Spider-Man'' tr ...

Ram Bergman Ram Bergman () is an Israeli film producer. He is known for producing ''Brick'' (2005), '' The Brothers Bloom'' (2008), '' Looper'' (2012), '' Star Wars: The Last Jedi'' (2017), and ''Knives Out'' (2019), all of which were written and directed by ...

and James D. Stern. Filming took place in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. The first trailer was released in September 2011.

Plot

Will Gerard is a humble high school English teacher in

. His wife Laura is a

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

who plays in a local orchestra. After a performance one evening, Laura is beaten and brutally raped by a stranger named Hodge. Will rushes to the hospital to see Laura. There, a stranger who calls himself Simon tells Will that he represents an organization that deals with criminals who have evaded the justice system, and that Hodge, who had raped three other women before, had been paroled shortly before his attack on Laura. Simon offers to have someone make Hodge pay for Laura's rape, in exchange for a favor from Will to be determined later. A distraught and grief-stricken Will consents to the deal, knowing this will spare Laura a drawn-out trial that would prolong her suffering. That night, Hodge is killed and a picture of Hodge's body, along with a necklace that Hodge took from Laura during the rape, are sent to Will as proof. The organization's code phrase is "The hungry rabbit jumps". Six months later, Simon returns to ask Will to repay the favor. He wants Will to follow a woman and her two children and to look out for a man, whom Simon deems a sex offender. Will initially complies, until Simon demands that Will kill the man on a pedestrian walkway under a high overpass, by "accidentally" bumping him off it to his death, making it look like suicide. Will becomes increasingly paranoid and earns a suspension from Jimmy, his best friend and the school's principal, after hitting a rebellious student. Fearing retaliation from Simon, Will reluctantly agrees to his demand, but intends to question the target about Simon instead of killing him. The man, already paranoid and suspicious of Will, attacks him: Will dodges his attacks, causing the man to fall to his death. Will runs home, where Detectives Rudeski and Green arrest him for murdering the man, whose name is Alan Marsh. At the station, Will fails to convince the detectives of his innocence. Their boss, Lieutenant Durgan, has a private meeting with Will, where he reveals himself as a member of Simon's organization and allows Will to escape, giving him 24 hours to leave the city before Simon comes looking for him. At a memorial for Alan, Will discovers that he was not a sex offender, but actually an award-winning reporter who was investigating the vigilante organization. Will realizes the organization is prepared to kill innocent people who become a threat to its existence. Simon and his henchmen Scar and Cancer arrive and give chase to Will, who escapes as Scar is accidentally killed by a speeding SUV. After Laura finds the necklace that had been returned to Will, he explains to her what is happening and advises her not to cooperate with the police or anyone asking questions. Will retrieves a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

from a storage facility that Alan used, which documents Alan's findings about the vigilantes. He learns that Jimmy joined the organization years ago after his brother was murdered and the killer could not be found, and that Simon's real name is Eugene Cook. Will offers Cook to trade the disc with the stolen security camera footage that proves his innocence in Alan's death. They agree to meet at the

Louisiana Superdome Caesars Superdome (originally Louisiana Superdome and formerly Mercedes-Benz Superdome), commonly known as the Superdome, is a domed multi-purpose stadium in the Southern United States, southern United States, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. ...

during a monster truck show. At the dome, Simon reveals he has kidnapped Laura to ensure Will keeps his side of the deal. They go to a nearby abandoned mall, where a bound-and-gagged Laura is being held at gunpoint by Cancer, Jimmy ― who claims he had no choice but to turn Laura in ― and a man named Sideburns. Will gives up the disc, but Cook reneges on the deal and orders both Will and Laura killed to tie all loose ends. Jimmy relents and kills Cancer, whereupon a struggle ensues, where Sideburns dies and Jimmy is fatally shot by Cook, who then loses his gun as Will engages in a fistfight with him. Laura manages to free herself and grabs Cook's gun, which she uses to kill Cook. As Will and Laura walk away, Durgan arrives and promises to arrange the crime scene to make it look like they were not present and the dead merely killed each other. The walkway camera footage is released, proving Will acted in self-defense and clearing him of any wrongdoing. With the disc still in hand, Will decides to follow up on Alan's work by giving it to Gibbs, a reporter whom Will met at Alan's memorial. Thanking him, Gibbs says, "The hungry rabbit jumps, eh?", indicating his involvement with the vigilante organization to a surprised Will.

Cast

as Will Gerard * January Jones as Laura Gerard *

as Simon * Harold Perrineau as Jimmy *

Jennifer Carpenter Jennifer Carpenter (born December 7, 1979) is an American actress. Her early film roles include the cult comedy ''White Chicks'' (2004) and the supernatural horror '' The Exorcism of Emily Rose'' (2005), with the latter establishing her as a ...

as Trudy *

Xander Berkeley Alexander Harper Berkeley (born December 16, 1955) is an American actor. Since beginning his career in the early 1980s, he has appeared in over 200 film and television projects. His films include ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' (1991), ''Candyman ...

as Lieutenant Durgan * IronE Singleton as "Scar" * Cullen Moss as Jones * Marcus Lyle Brown as Detective Green *

Dikran Tulaine Dikran Tulaine (born John Dikran Utidjian; 23 June 1956) is an English-Armenian actor, storyteller and playwright. He had a recurring guest role of Max on the NBC series ''The Blacklist'' (2013–2021), and was in the films '' G.I. Joe: Retalia ...

as "Sideburns" * Jason Davis as Alan Marsh

Release

Box office

The film opened at #27 at the US box office, taking $249,912 during its first weekend. ''Seeking Justice'' has currently grossed $12.4 million worldwide.

Critical reception

''Seeking Justice'' has received mixed reviews from critics. , the film holds a 28% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 79 reviews with an average rating of 4.52/10. The consensus states: "''Seeking Justice'' is nothing more than a typical

potboiler A potboiler or pot-boiler is a novel, Play (theatre), play, opera, film, or other creative work of dubious literary or artistic merit whose main purpose is to pay for the creator's daily expenses—thus the imagery of "boil the pot", which means " ...

with another phoned-in performance from Nicolas Cage."

Accolades

The film earned a

Razzie Award The Golden Raspberry Awards (also known as the Razzies and Razzie Awards) is a parody award show honoring the worst of cinematic failures. Co-founded by UCLA film graduates and film industry veterans John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy, the Razzi ...

nomination for Cage as Worst Actor.

References

External links

* {{Roger Donaldson 2011 films 2011 action thriller films 2011 crime action films 2011 crime thriller films 2010s mystery thriller films 2011 independent films American action thriller films American crime action films American crime thriller films American mystery thriller films American independent films American chase films British action thriller films British crime action films British crime thriller films British independent films British chase films Films about miscarriage of justice Films directed by Roger Donaldson Films shot in New Orleans Films produced by Ram Bergman Films produced by Tobey Maguire Films scored by J. Peter Robinson English-language Italian films Italian crime action films Italian action thriller films American rape and revenge films 2010s vigilante films British vigilante films American vigilante films British rape and revenge films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films 2010s British films FilmNation Entertainment films English-language independent films English-language crime action films English-language crime thriller films English-language action thriller films English-language mystery thriller films