At this point, I gotta believe that there is a clause in the contract of the Grand Pooh-Bah of has-beens, Nicolas Cage, that the film must be set in New Orleans or Las Vegas. His propensity for films set in either of these two cities cannot possibly be coincidence, can it? Perhaps there’s a clause or a coupon in Hollywood Reporter: 75% discount off Cage if you film in New Orleans or Las Vegas. [See insert]
Will (Cage) is a high school English teacher married to local musician Laura (January Jones). Stop right there. January Jones is married to Nicolas Cage? You’re asking me to suspend my disbelief to the breaking point right off the bat, huh? Forget it. Moving on. One evening, Laura is beaten and raped. The conflict is thankfully brief and forgiving. At the hospital, Cage finds distraught mode. And then he finds the devil.
Simon (Guy Pearce) confronts Cage with a proposition. He knows who raped Laura. He works outside the law and can have Laura’s assailant killed, just say the word. At this point, Seeking Justice is only concerned about the morality of the situation. Would you have someone killed if you could? What if he really, really deserved it? What if his crime involved your spouse/significant other? What if it you’re your child? Unasked and unanswered is how Simon has photos and a dossier of exactly who the scumbag is and what’s going to happen if Cage says the word. Such brings up the same sort of existential dilemma with Pearce on the other side in Memento – if all you care about is revenge and you’ll never again meet your foe under any circumstances, does it really matter who it is? In fact, does taking revenge even matter? What if, like Leonard in Memento, you could simply convince yourself (or in Leonard’s case not convince himself) that revenge had been taken? Would the actual revenge matter?
Will agrees, of course, because if he doesn’t, the movie pretty much stops right there. And the question becomes: what did Will buy? And how powerful is the organization Simon belongs to? As the very next scene directs a common everyday man murdering the rapist, a guy he clearly does not know, offering a “deed is done” password: “the hungry rabbit jumps,” and fleeing into the night, the future becomes obvious – at some point, Will is going to be asked to kill somebody he doesn’t know.
Seeking Justice is another in the tentative, moral Nicolas Cage genre. This version of Cage isn’t particularly fun. You just know he’s going to be in-and-out of police stations, seedy bars, and undisclosed underworld locations. Hmmm, that doesn’t quite distinguish it from his other roles, does it? Ok, he’s gonna be in those places, but feeling uncomfortable instead of lapping it up. There’s almost certainly going to be a scene where he gets arrested for something he didn’t do.
In retrospect, this role opened the door for Pearce as his controlled megalomaniac in Iron Man 3: Cobalt. Ever since L.A. Confidential, Pearce has made a great “guy you 
want to punch, but think better of it.” He makes a decent villain and a superior actor for handling coercion. Does that necessarily make Seeking Justice any better? Not really.
For a film out to express the same glimpse into worldwide conspiracy and corruption like, say, Three Days of the Condor, Seeking Justice falls flat, focusing on Cage’s survival rather than the implications of the entanglement. Thus whatever the film might have been trying to say about above-the-law antics, its face is FYNC on the run. Certainly Seeking Justice could have done worse than morphing into Seeking Nicolas, but remains forgettable all the same.
♪He once was a vampire, and Memphis Raines
Pure class destroyer, lives to be insane
Lost all his money, should be his bane
Yet he desires, career never to wane
Even tho’ Cam’ron Poe was so long ago
Any movie so-so, and he’ll show
Despite the assuage it’s still always Nicolas Cage
Could be an ice age and still there is Nicolas Cage
Then someone will say, “For God’s sake please don’t engage”
Despite an upstage there still remains Nicolas Cage♫
Rated R, 105 Minutes
D: Roger Donaldson
W: Robert Tannen
Genre: FYNC!
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Conspiracy theorists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Detectives
♪ Parody inspired by “Rat in a Cage”
