Lila & Eve (2015)

Summary
Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son's murder, attends a support group where she meets Eve, who urges her to take matters into her own hands to track down her son's killers. They soon embark on a journey of revenge, but also recovery.

Genre : Drama/Crime
Country : USA

Cast :
Jennifer Lopez : Eve Rafael
Viola Davis : Lila
Aml Ameen : Stephon

Director : Charles Stone III

My Opinion

“God, grant me the serenity to accept
the things that I cannot change...
The courage to change
the things that I can...
And the wisdom to know the difference.”

Lila (Viola Davis) and Eve (Jennifer Lopez) are two grief-drawn women after their children have been killed. Unlike others, they won't throw in the towel and want to take revenge. It's time they take matters into their own hands. You guessed it. It's just another revenge movie that's being released on mankind. This time it's about two grieving mothers who are about to face a brutal drug gang and their errand boys who are dealing on every street corner. That's an element that doesn't occur often in a revenge movie. Unfortunately it came across as quite implausible. The police hit a dead end, so the investigation isn't really progressing (but according to the two avenging angels, this is due to their laxness because the victims are colored individuals). However, the two innocent housewives, whose lives only consist of doing household chores, redesigning the interior and attending a support group for parents of murdered children, can get to the kingpin of this drug gang, just by using simple interrogation techniques and some data from a mobile phone.

The acting part was far from bad. At certain moments Davis and even Lopez perform excellent. Davis was a complete stranger for me (that's because I hate television series and haven't seen "How to Get Away with Murder") but she's excellent at the beginning as the mother who collapses and survives on pills. A brilliant piece of acting. During the confrontations with the young rascals, her appearance as the clumsy fury wasn't that successful. I was more surprised about Lopez who, unlike her part in "Parker", showed she really can act decently. She was quite convincing as the self-righteous, rebellious vigilante who thinks that the concept of the support group is a bit too soft. She's the driving force behind Lisa's revenge.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention enough or I was tired while watching "Lila & Eve", because I really didn't see that plot twist coming at the end. The film on its own wasn't so impressive however. It was rather a "ah, that's the direction they are going" feeling I had afterwards. The closure was a bit too sentimental and unreal. Ultimately, it's only an average, ordinary film so to speak. Nothing exciting or captivating. Even the acting couldn't save this film. In short, it's just one to add to your list of movies you should watch when you're retired, because you have plenty of time then.