Gerard Butler Movie:

Editorial Review:
The legal thriller meets the serial-killer shocker in Law Abiding Citizen. The story begins when home invaders kill Clyde Shelton's wife and daughter. The bereaved father (played by a thoroughly unsympathetic Gerard Butler) looks to slick Philly prosecutor Nick Rice (a low-key Jamie Foxx) to see that they receive the maximum sentence. Instead, the murderer, Ames, testifies against his accomplice, Darby, who gets the chair, while he gets 10 years. Upon his release, Ames' mutilated body turns up in an abandoned warehouse, and all roads lead to Shelton. Rice attempts to defend him, but his client makes it impossible--Shelton wants to go to prison--so he does time, but then members of Rice’s legal team start to die. The attorney suspects Shelton, but can't connect him to the crimes, so he races against the clock to save the lives of his assistant, Sarah (Leslie Bibb), D.A. Jonas (Bruce McGill), and his own wife and child. The movie may sound like a Yank reboot of the Japanese chiller Cure, in which an inmate kills from inside institutional walls, but plays more like a mash-up between The Silence of the Lambs, without the psychological complexity, and The Devil's Advocate, without the cynical giggles. F. Gary Gray got his start with hip-hop videos and urban action flicks, like Set It Off, until he hit the big time with his remake of The Italian Job. Law Abiding Citizen is a disappointing muddle from a director who's done better in the past and will surely do better in the future. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Law Abiding Citizen [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Poor
2009-12-03 - The movie is disappointing. Everywhere in the world there is a miscarriage of justice - no matter what system is used. I'm 100% for making sure the 100% guilty get a fair punishment - by any means.

1.5 stars. Laughable insult to intelligence with one of the worst endings ever.
2009-11-17 - I'm sure we've all experienced many movies where we said to ourselves, "Well, I'll just turn my brain off, sit back and enjoy the thrills (or chills, or silliness)." Heck, a great thing about a lot of movies is being ABLE to do that and just have a childlike good time. There are many mentally undemanding movies that delight: THE HANGOVER is the most recent example that springs immediately to my mind. It stretches credibility, yet is generally so well cast and constructed, and so genial in its carrying on that only a real Scrooge wouldn't crack a smile. I would also say that CRANK 2, a truly jaw-droppingly unrealistic movie actually works in its quite twisted way because it clearly knows that it has gone way to far in terms of physical believability or even good taste. (SHOOT `EM UP is an even better example.) These kinds of films are sometimes guilty pleasures...but they often are the movies that come down from the video shelf over and over again. I've watched SUPERBAD a few more times than CITIZEN KANE. Is it a better movie? Hardly! Is it more entertaining? Yep! And it has heart, too.

Then there is LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, a movie that wants to be serious, intelligent, "adult" action thriller with a moral message. In reality, it is a piece of trash that needed to embrace its real self. Thus, it mostly fails as either kind of movie.

The film opens with us meeting handsome but homespun Gerard Butler as he shares tender moments with his young daughter and lovely wife. He is an inventor or engineer of some sort, but mostly seems to be a nice guy that you'd expect is nice to his neighbors, goes to church, wears sweaters and is devoted to his family. A GOOD guy. Yet in mere moments, he suffers a home invasion that leaves him without a family. His family is killed before his eyes in a manner that is so uncomfortable to watch that we frankly never quite shake the squalor. I realize there's nothing "entertaining" about a family being killed, but direct F. Gary Gray goes a bit too far. He doesn't just generate righteous outrage in us, but an uncomfortable feeling of "this movie has gone too far for a piece of fluff."

The bad guys are caught, and prosecutor Jamie Foxx steps in. A driven man with an eye on his next promotion (has there ever been a movie ADA that isn't ambitious and driven to replace his boss?), Foxx eventually plea bargains with the bad guys, much to the unbelieving anger of Butler (understandably).

Years pass, and one of the bad guys gets out of jail. He is almost immediately kidnapped, tortured and killed by Butler (again, in a manner that borders on films more like SAW and HOSTEL). And Butler is almost immediately caught an imprisoned. But now he's not such a teddy bear. He's a ruthless killer of his own, who apparently has figured out a way to carry out a rather complex revenge scheme, even while in prison. Foxx must figure out what's going on before Butler has killed his entire team, because he blames the system as much as he blames the killers.

The film contains lots of scenes of verbal cat-and-mouse between Butler and Foxx, and the two do bring a lot of charisma to their scenes together. But the script isn't particularly intelligent (although the way the film is directed...and filmed, with lots of gray tones), clearly the creators thought it was smart and taut.

But the killings become more and more elaborate and rococo. Butler resembles little more than a more handsome and healthy SAW killer...able to spin elaborate murders that are also neat little moral lessons.

We're clearly meant to agonize over what Butler is doing. The system certainly wronged him...coupling that wrong with what he endured, along with a brilliant engineer's mind, and you apparently have the recipe for a diabolical (but righteous) serial killer. Foxx mostly glowers and looks angry, and other than a few bursts in his encounters with Butler, his performance is one-note and not very interesting. NOTHING of his natural charm comes through...he's created a workaholic tighta** who is also a humorless party-pooper. So it's actually easier to root for Butler than for him (although Butler's performance is one-note as well...he at least has some manic, if unspecific, energy).

But while 85% of the movie is a fairly uninspired thriller with a few explosions and some gruesome killings...we ARE left to wonder: how is Butler doing all this from jail? Does he have help from the outside? And then, wonder of wonders, the truth is revealed and the movie goes from being just barely okay to jaw-droppingly laughable. It's a "surprise" twist that should win awards of audacity (and also for implausibility). I had to laugh outloud, then I stopped to assure myself the movie was REALLY doing what I thought it was, and when I ascertained that it indeed WAS...I laughed some more.

How anyone made the final few scenes with a straight face is beyond me. Had the movie been made with a tone that was more "nudge-nudge" than deadly serious, it might have come across as just another crazy twist in a wacky revenge fantasia. Instead, it was the final nail in the coffin of self-seriousness that this film should be buried in.

I can find very little to reason for you to endure this film. I've done it for you, and you should thank me for the warning!!

Just A Mess of a Movie
2009-11-05 - "Law Abiding Citizen", the new film starring Gerard Butler (in his third film in six months) and Jamie Foxx, is one of those films that seems to be recycled from elements from other films. It is almost as though someone said lets make a film about a father who seeks revenge, like in "Death Wish", throw in some legal maneuvers, like any John Grisham film, throw in some shots of a crazy man imprisoned in a special cell, like in "Silence of the Lambs", and throw in some good old grisly torture scenes, like in so many 'torture porn' films. The mix is so new, so fresh, that it is original. It will be a huge hit.

Yes, the mix is new, but when you take well-known elements from questionable films and simply combine them, you end up with a mess, a mess that most people will be able to spot as a recycled piece of crap and stay away from the multiplex.

For the unlucky few that do actually go to watch this film, it will not be a pleasant experience.

But there is an overriding thought, a glimmer of hope carrying the viewer through the experience. When even this idea is purposely discarded, you might leave the theater as upset as I was.

Clyde Shelton (Butler) returns home one evening to his loving wife and child. There is a knock at the door and two men barge in and tie everyone up. They leave Clyde alive to watch as his wife is murdered and then raped by Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte). The two men then walk towards Clyde's daughter's room as he blacks out. A few months later, Deputy District Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) has accepted a plea bargain from Darby who will testify against his partner for a reduced sentence of a few years in prison. Darby's partner will receive the death penalty. Clyde is enraged and can't believe the Deputy DA won't take the case to court. He saw both men and will ID them, but Rice doesn't want to take a chance on a trial that might impact his conviction rate negatively. Clyde is one very upset man Ten years later, as Darby's accomplice faces lethal injection; Rice brings his younger protégé to the prison to watch. But something goes wrong, horribly wrong and the man dies a painful death. A few hours later, as the police zero in on Darby (who has since been released from prison) Clyde kidnaps the criminal and takes him to one of his own warehouses. The fact that Clyde now owns a number of properties is a long, complicated part of the story. When Darby wakes up, he finds himself strapped down to a worktable with various needles in him. Clyde, wearing a mask, turns on a video recorder and begins to extract revenge. Thus begins an elaborate tale of cat and mouse as Clyde attempts to extract revenge on all of those people responsible for his wife and child's murderers going free. In other words, he begins to extract revenge on the entire legal system.

"Law Abiding Citizen" spends a lot of time making us feel sympathetic for Clyde. And it does a good job of it, we feel sympathetic for Clyde even as he begins to extract his revenge and start killing off all of the Deputy DAs, policemen, judges, elected officials and more who he feels were responsible for the lack of punishment for the murders of his family. And the film spends a lot of time making us sort of loathe the very ground Rice walks on. Again, it does a good job of making him seem slightly good, possibly more crooked and oily than he should be. The end result seems clear. Then the filmmakers throw other elements into the mix. As the film opens, Rice's wife is pregnant and they have just moved into a new house. Ten years later, they have a beautiful daughter and a beautiful house. Surely, Clyde won't do anything to them, it would make him seem too similar to Darby and erase a lot of the sympathy we have for him. Surely, Rice will feel a little more empathetic to Clyde now that he has a girl of his own. Surely, he can relate more?

But the film decides to buck the trend. Clyde does in fact do something that brings some terror into the lives of Nick's daughter and wife. It isn't much, but it does open the eyes of both Nick and the viewer. Clyde means business and he doesn't care if he ruffles a few young feathers to get the message across. Unfortunately, this does serve to make him also less empathetic. It makes the story more interesting, because he is willing to go to any lengths.

As the film proceeds, you become aware of a point where the character development stops and the story simply becomes a tale of revenge. F. Gary Gray, the director of such films as "The Italian Job" and "Be Cool" and his screenwriter Kurt Wimmer ("Street Kings", "The Recruit") seem more interested in this aspect of the story as well. Each of the executions seems designed to provide a little puzzle for Rice and his team and to illustrate the extent Clyde will go in order to extract revenge. Some of these are interesting, surprising, even a little over the top even if they seem better suited to the newest "Final Destination" film rather than a film about a mourning father extracting revenge. But they don't help to provide character development.

And I was willing to go along for the ride. Clyde deserves revenge because he is given a really raw deal and Butler makes us believe in his pain, his remorse and his determination to get revenge. I was willing to overlook the over-the-top "Saw"-esque revenge scene and the cobbled together nature of the story. That is how successful Butler is at making us believe in his character.

That is, I was willing to go along for the ride until the final act of the film begins to unfold. And perhaps this part of the film ruined the rest because of Foxx's inability to make us feel anything for his character, Nick Rice. Throughout the film, Rice is more than a little shady, more than a little crooked and willing to bend the rules to help his career advance. Later, after his wife and daughter receive a little threat from Clyde, he doesn't really change this very much and seems to continue along his merry path. Foxx is good at making us feel there is an underlying need for his character to get ahead, to advance to the next step in the system.

But as the film winds down, everything we have been feeling for the two characters is supposed to change 180. And the two central characters aren't given the time or the material to make this happen. And because of this, the film fails. Miserably.

As we left the theater, I remarked to my companion that the film's morality reflected the old gangster films of the thirties. You spend an hour or so with a gangster and learn to like him and then, because of the production code, he had to get "what he deserved" and either be arrested by the police or die. Unfortunately, this type of moral code doesn't fly with the film we have just watched and makes the entire thing seem like a waste of time.

Brilliant display of the psychodynamics of all involved in criminal justice.
2009-11-01 - In few intense minutes, the movie preludes the transformation of a harmonious family into the abyss of criminal insanity.

The sole survivor of such gruesome upheaval was left with nothing to lose or to live for other than struggling with finding illusive enemies. The state's most crucial role was confining the victim and the villains within the justice system. Quickly, the victim realized that such system was also confined by the bounds of laws and restrained by the rigors of gathering evidence. As such, the so many players tasked with gathering evidence created many loopholes for villains to evade conviction and for defendants to raise doubts on the reliability of evidence.

Devastated with the ultimate punishment of losing his beloved family, the victim has to endure the hypocrisy of striking deals with criminals. Impatient with the bureaucratic behemoth of the legal system, the victim entrusted his mastery of physical sciences over the mastery of changing the so many minds of the bureaucratic machine. Losing objectivity, the victim embarked on a campaign of vengeance against any encounter that would display the slightest hint of unaccountability.

Dismembering the real and direct villains did not end the victim's ordeal for getting justice. He must deal with the consequences of his vigilante's deeds. The same prosecutor who struck deals with criminals in order to obtain conviction, must extract confession from the victim- vigilante in order to conclude the ongoing action. While still alive and resourceful, the victim had few ammunition to straighten out the unscrupulous justice officials for the slightest altercations. As the death toll starts rising, the cleverness of the resourceful vigilante gave up to the vast power of the state.

At the end, the movie succeeded in portraying the endless suffering of the prosecutor in having to address the skepticism of his own colleagues in the morality of his deal-striking approach, the mistrust of the traumatized victims who expects nothing less that plain and expedient justice, and the objective judge who must balance the evidence according to rigorous legal standards.



Can vigilante justice be more just than courtroom justice?
2009-11-01 - What do you get when you take the disturbed genius from Seven, the sadistically brutal revenge from Man on Fire, the attack and subsequent vigilante justice from the awesome Death Wish Collection, and the structure crashing desire for anarchy from Fight Club? The product is the immensely enjoyable action thriller Law Abiding Citizen.

When wealthy engineer Gerard Butler sees his family murdered as he lay helpless on the ground, anguish and pain rule his life. His lawyer, assistant DA Jamie Foxx, is a slick winner known for an extraordinarily high conviction percentage. Against his wishes, Foxx brokers a deal in exchange for testimony from one of the criminals. Predictably, the scumbag goes free early, and Butler is beside himself with disbelief when he sees his lawyer talking to the rat. Rather than go all "Time to Kill" on everyone, Butler decides to let the pot simmer deep inside. Fast forward ten years, and Foxx - now one step away from being the DA - must deal with a rich and vengeful Butler who has boiled over with rage at his misgivings with the U.S. legal system.

This is one of those movies perfect for viewers who shut their brains off, or for those who must question everything. For the former, there is nonstop action, plotting, and awesome revenge that rivals the best vigilante justice ever seen. Butler is perfectly calculating, displaying what a resourceful person can do with no other true goal in life but to exact revenge and pain upon those who have caused harm. For the latter, it's an introspective look at crime, prosecution, and justice. Regardless of aspects that may be a little difficult to believe - but not quite Armageddon unbelievable - it definitely causes a viewer to evaluate the justice system flaws...while enjoying the Butler's wisecracks and richly deserved revenge that every family member who has suffered through something like the actions of this movie's killers.

From top to bottom this is a very entertaining movie. It's not all explosions and shock scenes, nor is it a snoozefest. With great directing and acting, a concept with which most people can support, and a clever ending that is fair considering the protagonist dichotomy, it's easy to root for each side of justice, and each character's goal. And if that is possible, then the point being made in this film is successful. I highly recommend this film.