“Talk is useless.”
Directed by: Charles Stone III
Written by: Pat Gilfillan
Cast: Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Aml Ameen
Swift shot: Don’t mess with Lila and Eve! This wonderfully gritty revenge flick is Death Wish, with a maniacal maternal twist.
Viola Davis is Lila, a grieving mother, whose oldest son, Stephon (Ameen) is gunned down in a pointless turf war by some shit-licking drug dealers. Her son was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander, who will never see his nineteenth birthday. Lila can’t eat. Lila can’t sleep. Lila is broken. She can’t cope with the grief, and her younger son, Justin (Ron Caldwell) tries in vain to bring his mother out of her depression. No one can help Lila, because no one knows what she really wants. Lila wants to make the monsters who slaughtered her son suffer.
Reluctantly, Lila decides to attend a “Mothers of Young Angels” group therapy session. It’s there that she meets Eve (Lopez). The group leader Mae (Michole Briana White) is encouraging Lila to move past the grief, but it is Eve that has Lila’s ear throughout the meeting. Afterwards, Lila catches up with Eve and asks if she’ll be her sponsor. Eve is tired of talk, all people do is talk. She agrees to help Lila, if they do things her way.
Of course, Eve’s way is to seek out the people that killed Stephon and work up the scumbag food-chain and introduce each of them to the grim reaper. Lila is not sure Eve’s methods will get results, but she can’t argue with her new friend’s conviction. And ever since meeting Eve, Lila has gained a little bit of vitality again. As the two mourning mothers tear through the pushers and other nefarious underworld criminals, they have to contend with their very own Columbo.
Homicide Detective Holliston (Shea Whigham) is on to the murders, and he’s even alluded to his partner Skaketti (Andre Royo) that Columbo is his hero, of sorts. But, as Holliston gets closer to solving the case, and the case broadens in scope due to the, demographic, of one of the victims, politics enters into the investigation. Holliston has to decide if he even wants to solve this case. Would you, really? A bunch of bad guys are getting killed, hard to shed many tears.
Lila and Eve is a refreshing turn away from films that tend to punish vigilantes, and it brings back a bite that has been missing from cinema. It’s easy to say this story is a feminist nod to Death Wish, and I think Charles Bronson would be proud of the work. The chemistry between Lila and Eve is important, because Eve is the answer to all of Lila’s dark prayers and introduces Lila to the realization that justice doesn’t really exist for “the little people” of the world. If you want justice, go seek it yourself, seems to be the message of Lila and Eve.
Not once does this film get bogged down by a message about doing the right thing and reminding polite society to let the system handle things. Lila and Eve has it where it counts and only really suffers from a meddling middle.
If you love revenge flicks, Lila and Eve will definitely put a righteous smile on your face.
