Well, this is a weird surprise. We have to admit, we had pretty much entirely forgotten about “The Hungry Rabbit Jumps.” First announced way back in September 2009, the film stars the pretty promising trio of Nicolas Cage, January Jones and Guy Pearce in the Tobey Maguire-produced film about a man (Cage) who becomes involved with an underground vigilante organization after a brutal attack on his wife (Jones). And with Roger Donaldson (“The Bank Job,” “Thirteen Days,” “No Way Out“) — who is no stranger to making genre fare classier than it should be — directing, and with comparisons to “The Game” and “Strangers on a Train” being tossed around, it seemed like it could be something potentially interesting. But somewhere along the journey, the movie seems to have lost its way. Though a first look at the film popped up last summer, it has since been mysteriously scrubbed from the EW page where it originated perhaps pointing to distributor woes stateside. However, the movie is unspooling overseas, hitting the U.K. this fall and The Sun has the first trailer. It won’t take you too long to realize why this one has been collecting dust.
So it looks kinda like it was directed by Joel Schumacher. Plus, we’re not sure why Nicolas Cage is trying to star in movies where he’s not the crazy person, but between this and the upcoming “Trespass,” we don’t pay money to see the actor dialed down. But here we have a bald Guy Pearce playing the villain, who sets up a devil’s bargain with Cage’s character in return for a “favor” down the line. Car chases and bad facial hair ensue. As for Jones, she’s pretty much a non-presence though there are enough glimpses to suggest that she has her own brand of revenge in mind. But yeah, all in all, this looks pretty low-rent though we wouldn’t say no to watching it at 1 AM after a few pints at the pub.
“Justice” opens in the U.K. on November 16th. You can check out the trailer below along with a plethora of pics from the film’s Italian distributor Eagle Pictures. And yes, that last picture of Nicolas Cage is our favorite one ever.