A VIGILANTE first ambushed recognition when it premiered in March, 2018 at the SXSW (South by Southwest) conference/festival in Austin, Texas. Critical acclaim followed upon release in select theaters a year later. Though raw box office was negligible ($83,000, a wee #261 in the States), commensurate disc and streaming venues clued in a wider audience. Writer-director Sarrah Daggar-Nickson’s debut feature transcends its deceptively prosaic title, which might put off many, guessing it’s just another revenge grinder. No slick and empty thriller, the 91 minutes are  painful and gripping, a dead serious, emotionally compelling drama, dominated by a superlative performance from Olivia Wilde.

“I tried to hide from it. And then I tried to run from it. And now… Now I’m gonna end it.”

Reborn thru suffering and tragedy, ‘Sadie’ (Wilde, 33) has a mission. Her husband (Morgan Spurlock) was a survivalist, intending to “live off the grid”, teaching Sadie wilderness skills thru camping trips. He was also a control freak, commanding her obedience thru physical and mental abuse. She fled, taking their young son, but the escape came at nearly unbearable cost, and the husband vanishes. Airing some of her misery and loss in therapy group helps, but her private ‘retreat to go forward’ involves secretly freeing other women (and children) from their abusers. Disguises, self-taught Krav Maga martial arts moves and searing determination are her cover, armor and purpose.

In real life avengers look to be in short supply but in movies they’re dime a dozen. Almost always they’re men, in payback showcases that range from superior to stupid (for example, the legendary Death Wish on one hand, its loathsome sequels on the other) with the occasional heroine firing back (Ms. 45), but they’re generally by-the-numbers (or kill count) affairs that rely on fancy manipulated retribution as the sole emotional payoff (Denzel kicking the bejesus out of sleazebag frat punks in the opener of The Equalizer 2 is a floor-wipe I could rewatch ’til the errant cows moo home). In this story, the scenes of justice served (cold) are whipsaw quick insofar as shown violence goes, but their effect registers strongly because the underlying buildups are so real and wrenching, starting with the harrowing group encounter sharing that opens the film, the hurt related by abuse victims is deeply felt.

When Sadie smites perps who deserve it (smug men—and one foul mom who has tormented her little boys), her self-taught movements are basic, blunt and to the point, not the elaborate trained-as-hot-assassin rousers excitingly doled out in sleek thrillers like Salt, Hanna, Haywire and Atomic Blonde. What really gives her actions their figurative kick is the subatomic focus Wilde brings to her character, expressed not in glares or throat punches but in other moments when her bereavement despair seizes her and erupts to the surface, in suffocating grief or thru the wild abandon of dance. The dire confrontation in the last act, while ultimately fitting, isn’t quite as strong as the lead-up, but it serves to leave us with some sense of salvation to have emerged from hopelessness. Wilde is a force to reckon with.

91 riveting minutes, with Tonye Patano, Kyle Catlett, Judy Marte, Estefania Tejeda, Chuck Cooper and C.J. Wilson. *

* A (minor) carp comes at the very start, when logos for the involved production companies go on long enough for you to learn a martial art: another little movie with thirty people credited as producers. Fine, if that’s what it takes to mount a project, and it’s decent (and contract insisted) to acknowledge everyone. But jumping the hurdle of eight production tags, immediately followed by re-iterating them as “in association with” and “presents”, before the frickin’ film title finally comes on…this gets to be A Thank Too Far. “He growled, to no avail…”