Law Abiding Citizen could be the movie of the year, but only if you're a big fan of stupid.
This vigilante drama stars Gerard Butler as a family man driven mad by the deaths of his wife and child. They are killed during a home invasion, which is how the movie begins.
To add insult to injury, the district attorney (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal with one of the two killers, who -- in exchange for his testimony -- gets a light sentence. Butler's character, unhinged by grief and by this plea-bargain turn of events, begins killing people in various creative ways. He wants to scare the district attorney into fixing the justice system, and that takes a heap of senseless violence and gross bloodletting.
Why didn't he go after the writer of this crap while he was at it? Just wondering.
Law Abiding Citizen has some fairly obvious plot holes and narrative oversights and several examples of plain-old bad storytelling. Oh, sure, it's lots of fun to watch entire parking lots full of cars blow up or people lose their heads in unexpected ways, but none of it makes much sense.
Butler's character, Clyde Shelton, wants revenge. He wants the death penalty to be more painful (?!!!), he wants his wife and child avenged, he wants to kill everyone who had a role in justice being denied. (There's a great idea in there for a movie. This isn't it.)
Clyde gets put in prison and still finds a way to kill people on the outside, a talent that leads to an interesting discovery about his career. Seems Clyde had some government contracts years ago, building remote killing machines and other deadly gadgets.
"You can't stop him," one of the characters advises. "If Clyde wants you dead, you're dead."
Really? Government contracts. Professional assassinations. A genius for murderous weapons. And the same guy opens his front door to home invaders without checking first to see who rang the doorbell?
That's likely.
Law Abiding Citizen wants to be all mysterious and philosophical, but it's just dumb.
The story has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with brutal violence; you're supposed to switch allegiances mid-way through the movie and start rooting for Jamie Foxx instead of Gerard Butler, but the complete lack of character development leaves a viewer free not to give a stuff about anybody.
That's not a good thing.
But all is not lost.
What Law Abiding Citizen does do well is gallows humour and ghastly death. Of course, with no connection to any of the players, even the killing eventually gets tedious, but never mind. If you want more than that -- a plot, say, or interesting characters -- you'll have to go rent Death Wish.
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