MovieChat Forums > Miss Meadows (2014) Discussion > She killed in self defense

She killed in self defense

posted 9 years ago by fimb
3 replies | jump to latest

I guess you can consider her a vigilante since she carries a gun in her purse and doesn't back down from trouble. All the killings shown onscreen are justifiable self defense.

the guy in the truck points a gun at her while she's skipping down the sidewalk, she's justified in killing him rather than get abducted and presumably raped and/or killed.

the killer in the fast food, hot dog joint pointed a shot gun at her so she acts in self defense.

The child molesting priest, well, I guess that wasn't justified, that was actually murder vigilante style. She straight shot him when he posed no immediate threat.

The only time you can kill someone in self defense is when they pose an immediate physical threat to you or to another person. By immediate physical threat, I mean you have to believe they cause death or serious injury.

[–] babastooey 9 years ago

This is the only real gripe I had with the film -- otherwise, I had a great time watching.

The problem is that in order for the film to work, Katie's character needed to both kill and have no witnesses -- so she had to be the one in danger. I suppose they could have had the bad guys get away with what they did, she witnesses it, and then later she hunts them down and kills them -- that would have been vigilante. As you said, she did have vigilante style behavior later with the priest and the threat to kill the child abuser over tea and crumpets.

I was thinking about how they could have kept all the scenes in and it could still work without the self-defense objection.....

They could have shown her in her previous town reading a newspaper article about the jails releasing criminals in the town where the movie took place --- establishing that she moved there because (1) it was probably getting too hot in the town where she was, and (2) she moved there specifically to confront the danger. Then when the neighbor tells her about the jail release, she could act surprised with a "You don't say?" but we would know she already knew about it.

The film doesn't come right out and say why she chose to move to this new town, but I like to think she specifically targeted it because of the prisoner release. So, even though she gets threatened by gunmen, she specifically put herself in that position to be a vigilante.

[–] LukeLovesFilm28 9 years ago

She didn't wait for the police to fill out a report. That's not responsible behavior. That's downright sociopathic.

[–] chicago85 9 years ago

Her neighbor had to explain why she was putting burglar bars on the windows due to the prisoner release. Katie Holmes had already been living there for several months. She also evaded explaining why she had left Toledo and moved to a smaller place. A smaller town would have less law enforcement.

I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else