ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 13, 1996 TAG: 9601150019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: JAY BOYAR ORLANDO SENTINEL
One of the most disturbing movie scenes in quite some time comes along early in ``Eye for an Eye.''
Karen McCann (Sally Field) - a middle-aged, middle-class woman - is on her car phone with her 17-year-old daughter when their conversation is suddenly interrupted.
No, it's not a bad connection.
Karen's daughter cannot continue talking because someone has entered her home and is raping her. Then he finishes the awful job by killing the poor girl.
This scene is especially horrific because Karen - stuck in traffic, far from home - can hear the entire nightmarish encounter. Her daughter is being attacked, and there is nothing she can do.
A movie that ups the emotional ante this way is playing for very high stakes: Either it'll be a great, powerful exploration of violence or just crude exploitation.
And despite a couple of mitigating factors, ``Eye for an Eye'' falls into the latter category.
Basically, this is ``Dirty Harry'' in drag - a film that relinquishes all claims to serious purpose by turning the audience into a kangaroo court. The good guys here are oh-so-good; the bad guy, oh-so-bad.
As the plot thickens, a prosecutor's incompetence allows the rapist-murderer to go free on a technicality. Karen joins a support group for relatives of victims, but it doesn't help enough.
The way the filmmakers rig the game, you'd almost have to be Gandhi not to root for our Dirty Harriet when she takes shooting lessons in order to get the guy herself.
``Eye for an Eye'' was written by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, the husband-and-wife team that worked together on ``The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' (1992).
The earlier film was rather manipulative, but, compared to the new one, it was a model of tact. Director John Schlesinger (``Pacific Heights,'' ``The Believers'') uses propaganda techniques to turn up the heat so high that you could toast marshmallows.
Neither Ed Harris, as Karen's ineffectual spouse, nor Beverly D'Angelo, as her best friend, makes much of an impression. But Joe Mantegna, as the cop on the case, has a couple of crackling scenes.
With cigarettes and tattoos, Kiefer Sutherland as the bad guy seems like a pale version of the villain Robert De Niro played in the 1991 remake of ``Cape Fear'' (a far more complex film than this one).
As for Sally Field, she gives herself totally to the role of Karen. Her gutsy, sincere performance saves just a bit of the movie's honor.
It's amazing, but she actually seems to believe in this trash.
Eye for an Eye **
A Paramount Pictures release playing at the Tanglewood and Crossroads Mall Theatres. 101 min. Rated R for violence, sexual situations and profanity.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: The tattoos are a dead giveaway: Kiefer Sutherlandby CNB(left) plays the murderous bad guy to Sally Field's saintly
vigilante mom. color