John Doe: Vigilante

John Doe: Vigilante starts in promising fashion then fizzles. Dolen and writer Stephen M. Coates give Doe a narrow focus: his targets are obvious malefactors, all male, ranging from paedophiles to sadists.

This is supposed to be a thriller, by the way. It's more of a slog, not so much a whodunit as a whydunit-and by the end, it's: Who cares?

The fatal flaw of "John Doe" is its focus on ideas, rather than people. The protagonist's victims are so cartoonishly evil they might as well be twirling their mustaches before being shot in the head.

Great to look at, and with an aftertaste that lingers, what you get out of John Doe: Vigilante will depend solely on the way that you swing with this thorny issue.