John Doe: Vigilante review: An avenger with a story to tell

With a shuffled chronology, an air of provocation and a recognisably Melbourne setting, filmmaker Kelly Dolen gives us a vigorous, slick tale of vengeance, bloodshed and ethics.

The mysterious John Doe (Jamie Bamber) is an avenger in a hoodie, a serial killer with a rationale for what he does: he executes his victims, rather nastily, because he's convinced that the conventional justice system doesn't deal with them adequately.  Some members of the police force appreciate his work (although perhaps not the publicity it generates). The media embraces him, more or less: an Internet journalist becomes a kind of PR arm, because John Doe films what he does and makes the footage available .

The reporter even coins a term for what John Doe does: he "speaks for the dead". This phrase gets taken up by some enthusiastic imitators who like his style. But there's another media figure playing a key role in the story: Ken Rutherford (Lachy Hulme), a bearded, suave pastiche of every self-centred, self-righteous TV journalist you can imagine. John Doe – who is on trial for murder at the beginning of the film – has picked him out for an exclusive inside story.

John Doe: Vigilante starts out in a promising fashion, then fizzles. Dolen and writer Stephen M Coates give Doe a narrow focus: his targets are obvious malefactors, all male, ranging from pedophiles to sadists. The enigma of motive and identity is less interesting than it seems, and the contradictions and questions about justice, morality and choices that the film raises are finally too glib and limited for the weight that they are given.