Title: ‘Lila & Eve’
2015, USA
Director: Charles Stone III
Cast: Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez
Two mourning mothers decide to track down the killers responsible for the murders of their children and take justice into their own hands.
Sometimes bad scripts happen to good actors, and that’s precisely the case here. Viola Davis is a terrific actress, the kind I’d watch in any role. And Jennifer Lopez’s acting skills have vastly improved since the last time I watched one of her movies. So it’s quite sad to see their talents wasted on a project that tries to deal with what should be very dark themes and situations without fully committing to the darkness of its material.
Because of that, the plot grows more and more farfetched by the minute, up until the disappointingly anticlimatic ending. The moral dilemma and inner conflict is oversimplified, while the characters move from one scene to the next with almost no real obstacles to overcome. Add the most overdone plot twist in the history of cinema (yes, that one), and you’ll know why any smart audience will refuse to take ‘Lila & Eve’ seriously.
A similar but far better film is ‘The Brave One’, starring Jodie Foster. Go watch that instead.
★★☆☆☆
That Movie Nut 
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