The Retaliators
“The Retaliators” feels like one of the ugliest films I’ve seen in recent years. I’m not talking about the visual look, although it’s certainly not slick, but the moral landscape the story lives in. But that is one of the things that makes working within genre so captivating, though- you can inhabit moral grey areas, and explore how characters live in them. It plays to an idea of vigilante justice I think a lot of people like to fantasize about, but would never really do themselves. The ways in which it does so are compelling, and they speak to how different people react to tragedy.
The film begins with two girls getting stuck in a car in a wooded area. One is taking care of something when these zombie-like monsters attack. Someone else comes and tries to save the girl still in the car. The movie will come back to that, though; the main crux of the story is about Bishop (Michael Lombardi), a pastor who is raising his two daughters- Sarah (Katie Kelly) and Rebecca (Abbey Hafer)- on his own. One night, Sarah goes to a party, but accidentally stumbles on something she isn’t supposed to see (the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad), and she is chased, and killed. Overcome with grief, Bishop becomes a shell of himself, but gets a sympathetic ear from a cop (Marc Menchaca) who knows what it’s like to lose someone they love. He offers Bishop a chance to heal, but shows just how down the rabbit hole grief can lead you.
In their screenplay, Darren Geare and Jeff Allen Geare takes the viewer on an unsettling journey down the moral abyss of vengeance, presenting us with ideas that are troubling, and speak to how some people feel entitled to enact constant suffering when given the chance to pay someone back. When given the opportunity, can Bishop confront his daughter’s murderer, and if so, can he turn the other cheek, and bestow forgiveness? The way “The Retaliators” gives us the answer to that question is interesting, and shows how the choice Bishop is offered is clear, even if he doesn’t see it that way at first. When he sees what allowing his daughter’s murderer to live will lead to, he recoils, and so do we; in a way, it’s a fate worse than death, and the punishment does not fit the crime. This is where the film gets morally ugly, and in a way, I’m not sure what to say about its ideas. Directors Lombardi, Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and Bridget Smith don’t give us- or their characters- easy answers, and that’s the best way a film like this can approach such a distressing subject matter. It also makes for a film which I’m not sure I would ever watch again, but “The Retaliators” is worth a look once if you are interested from the premise.
