John Doe: Vigilante

John Doe: Vigilante (also known as John Doe) is a 2014 Australian crime thriller, directed by Kelly Dolen. The Story is written by Kelly Dolen and Stephen M.Coates. The Screenplay was written by Stephen M.Coates. The film stars Daniel Lissing, Jamie Bamber, Lachy Hulme and Ditch Davey.

Plot

John Doe (Jamie Bamber) is an ordinary man who decides to take the law into his own hands due to frustration with a failing legal system after his wife and daughter was killed and the murderer not caught. John Doe then exacts his justice by killing one criminal at a time, filming the process and sending it to the media - gaining attention from the media in the process. However, the mainstream media edited the films, showing only the "killing process" but not the reason. John Doe then gave the films to a smaller media outfit who then showed the films in its entirety on the internet. As expected, there are sections of the public who support what he did and there are those who questions what would he do once he had finished killing all criminals ? A movement supporting John Doe's actions ("Speak for the Dead") was started and started publicising John Doe's "victims" - repeated serial pimps, serial rapists, paedophiles - criminals who were arrested, sentenced and upon their release, re-commits the same offences again. An incident occurred at a night club where two bouncers threw a teenage boy out of the bar and assaulted the boy. The boy died as a result of his injuries. John Doe killed one of the bouncer with a home-made cyanide patch. This inspired other copycat vigilantes ^[1]. Three teenage boys then decided to go after the other bouncer but it went horribly wrong with the bouncer killing all the three teenage boys. But this incident resulted in the movement becoming more organised and the next scene showed a larger group of people wearing masks who attacked the bouncer with baseball bats. It transpired that one of the three teenage boys was a patient of John Doe. The question arose whether John Doe had "influenced" the boys to carry out the actions on his behalf. The story ends with John Doe filming what he did with Adam, a serial criminal who killed his wife and daughter, who was 9 years old. The whole incident was shown live with John Doe removing his mask halfway. He gave Adam an opportunity to convince him why he (Adam) should not be killed. This indie film is unique in that it presents both sides of the story, one of them from John Doe who has already been caught and arrested (his motivation and objective), and another from the media and police, which many films dealing with vigilantes focus less on. The typical questions regarding the "right" or "wrong" of the purpose of a vigilante is presented objectively.

• Jamie Bamber as John Doe / Mr Jones.
• Daniel Lissing as Jake
• Lachy Hulme as Ken Rutherford, an investigative journalist whom John Doe requested to meet a day before the Jury makes its decision.
• Ditch Davey as Detective Clint James
• Sam Parsonson as Murray Wills
• Paul O'Brien as Officer J.Callahan
• Chloe Guymer as Chloe
• Louise Crawford as Leah
• Ben Schumann as Boy
• Fletcher Humphrys as Henry Junig
• Brooke Ryan as Mary
• Gary Abrahams as Sam

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics, receiving a rating of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 3.8/10 based on 5 reviews.^[2]

References

External links

• Official website
• John Doe: Vigilante on IMDb