Miss Meadows (2014)

Katie Holmes plays a peculiar vigilante in "Miss Meadows"

During the opening scene of “Miss Meadows,” the title character played by Katie Holmes is taking a stroll through her quaint Ohio town—the kind of tree-lined utopia where birds are gently chirping and it’s quiet enough to see a pair of fawns casually prance across a lawn—when suddenly a creepy guy pulls up in a pickup truck and begins to threaten her. Undaunted, she pulls out a short barrel pistol from her tiny purse and shoots him dead without a flicker of emotion.

It’s not exactly the same as discovering a severed human ear in a field, but the way an idyllic, peaceful neighborhood is abruptly jarred by violence is reminiscent of that notorious first sequence of David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.”

Written and directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins, “Miss Meadows” is also a close cousin to the “Death Wish” films, with the titular heroine—who doubles as an elementary school teacher and wears clothes (white gloves, bar shoes) that make her look like she stepped out a 50s sitcom—fearlessly protecting the suburbs from bad guys the way Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey covered the inner city. She’s similarly conflicted, we learn, when a lurid flashback reveals that as a child, she witnessed her mother being slain in a drive-by shooting.

As the body count rises, the dull town sheriff (inertly played James Badge Dale) arrives and instead of arresting Meadows predictably falls in love with her, believing their strange, quickly evolving romance—she gets pregnant during an embarrassingly comic sex scene and they later agree to get married—will turn the deranged sociopath into a suitable housewife and mother. Meanwhile, a sinister looking ex-con moves into the neighborhood and starts skulking around the kids at school, setting up an inevitable showdown with Meadows.

“Miss Meadows” is an intriguing but ultimately messy mix of style and tone, hitting notes of dark comedy and folding in awkward bits of social commentary that feel forced and preachy rather than genuinely edgy or provocative. The usually sunny Holmes gamely takes the lead, but the bizarre vigilante satire has her treading murky waters. There’s ideas and an attitude here, but not enough cohesion.