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‘Law Abiding Citizen’ serves revenge too cold
Movie
Law Abiding Citizen
Clyde Shelton is an upstanding family man whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion. When the killers are caught, Nick Rice, a hotshot young Philadelphia prosecutor, is assigned to the case. Over his objections, Nick is forced by his boss to offer one of the suspects a light sentence in exchange for testifying against his accomplice. Fast forward 10 years. The man who got away with murder is found dead and Clyde Shelton coolly admits his guilt. Then he issues a warning to Nick: Either fix the flawed justice system that failed his family, or key players in the trial will die. Soon Shelton follows through on his threats, orchestrating from his jail cell a string of spectacularly diabolical assassinations that can be neither predicted nor prevented. Philadelphia is gripped with fear as Shelton's high-profile targets are slain one after another and the authorities are powerless to halt his reign of terror. Only Nick can stop the killing, and to do so he must outwit this brilliant sociopath in a harrowing contest of wills in which even the smallest misstep means death. With his own family now in Shelton's crosshairs, Nick finds himself in a desperate race against time facing a deadly adversary who seems always to be one step ahead.
‘Law Abiding Citizen’
Grade: D
Director: F. Gary Gray
Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes
Rating: R for strong, bloody brutal violence and torture, a scene of rape and pervasive language
By Roger Moore
“Law Abiding Citizen” is a glib, brutal and preposterous revenge fantasy, a take-the-law-in-your-own-hands rabble rouser that taps into a lot of fears and genuine gripes about the American legal system. It’s the sort of movie Mel Gibson or Clint Eastwood might have made back in the day — a man survives the slaughter of his family by thugs and sets out to get even, and then some.
Gerard Butler has the title role, Clyde Shelton, a “tinkerer” who is stabbed during a home invasion. Jamie Foxx is the politically ambitious Philadelphia prosecutor who lets one of the killers get off easy so the other will be executed.
“It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove in court,” Nick Rice tells a distraught Clyde.
Nick is listening to his boss (Bruce McGill). “In this job, your best asset is a short memory.” But that’s not Clyde. Ten years later, when one of the killers is finally executed, his elaborate revenge begins.
“Citizen” is a “You don’t know who you’re messing with” thriller, like “Taken.” Clyde may be a “Law Abiding Citizen,” but he’s got gadget skills and a sadistic streak. When he kills crooks and the legal eagles who kept them from justice, he makes them suffer. Almost all of them have terrifying seconds to realize their fate.
Nick knows who is doing this, even locks up Clyde. But since he’s the ultimate quarry in this blood feud, Nick must see those around him die at Clyde’s gadget-guru hands.
Butler gives Clyde a wicked glee at what he is doing, but only a hint of the humanity he lost when his wife and daughter were slain.
His battle-of-brains-and-wills scenes with Foxx don’t have a lot of snap, and since those confrontations are the heart here, that drains some energy off the film.
A rich canvas of character actors (Colm Meaney, Viola Davis) are mostly plot necessities. The Kurt Wimmer (“The Recruit”) script has a cruel wit, up until it falls apart in a dishonest and outlandish third act. Director F. Gary Gray (“The Italian Job”) maintains his rep for action scenes that deflate on screen.
You would like to hope filmmakers, outside of the horror genre anyway, don’t start from a place of utter cynicism.
But we know exactly what we’re dealing with in “Law Abiding Citizen.” It’s a “Who dies next?” slasher film masquerading as a revenge thriller.