Q&A

The film you're thinking of is "Eye for an Eye," the 1996 film based on a novel by Erika Holzer.

Though it did good numbers at the box office, critics savaged this vigilante melodrama. Legendary film reviewer Roger Ebert called it "a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation," while Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers criticized director John Schlesinger for taking a "dip from the glory days of 'Midnight Cowboy' to this swill."

Harsh.

This despite a glowing cast featuring Field as the mother, Emmy-winning Kiefer Sutherland as the low-as-dirt killer, who eludes prison time on an infuriating technicality. It also features Ed Harris as Field's husband and Joe Mantegna as the detective who initially caught Sutherland.

But even the cast didn't escape unscathed, with Travers saying Field "looked ridiculous" and "overacted hysterically." Harris is "wasted" on the script, and Sutherland's performance is "one-note."

Throughout his career Sutherland, whose success has almost always come from his good-guy roles, has - perhaps as a result - continually gone after bad-guy spots. For example, two years after his second turn as good-hearted outlaw Doc Scurlock in 1990's "Young Guns II," he was appearing as a cruel platoon commander in "A Few Good Men."

"Eye for an Eye" came at the low period in Sutherland's career, after the blush of his brat-pack youth fame wore off but before his recent resurgence with the lead in the smash-hit series "24." Prior to playing the black-souled rapist and murderer hunted by the righteous Sally Field, his most notable role was as one of the best of all good guys, a Musketeer in Disney's big-budget 1993 adventure "The Three Musketeers."

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