Customer Reviews

Law Abiding Citizen

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(72)
3 star:		(54)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Overall, a great movie up until the final 10 minutes or so. A different ending would have gotten a 5 star rating.

This movie was a lot better than I had expected. To me, it was like a mix of 'Saw' and 'Max Payne. Gerard Butler does an awesome job as a psychotic man with nothing to lose. Ten years after a home invasion that leaves his wife and daughter dead, Clyde Shelton returns to seek true justice. I love when he dismembers the man who murdered them. When Clyde is sent to jail, people are still dying in mysterious ways, and Nick Rice tries to stop it. When Rice interrogates Clyde, he wants something in return such as his iPod, and a steak. Soon, nobody feels safe leaving their homes, because they don't know where or when Clyde will strike next. Does he have an accomplice? I highly recommend LAW ABIDING CITIZEN!!!

I actually got Law Abiding Citizen by accident from Netflix. I was supposed to get 2012, but oddly it was Law Abiding Citizen in the 2012 case. They sent me out 2012 when I reported the issue and I watched that first. Oy, what a mistake that was, because 2012 wasn't a Disaster Movie it was a movie disaster! Anyway...

Law Abiding Citizen was a lot better than 2012. In fact as the movie played out, I thought to myself, "what a great movie." Even as the credits rolled I felt thoroughly entertained by the movie I had just watched. It had a lot of action, suspense, and it kept me guessing right up to the very end.

Then as I reflected on the film I thought more about how silly the premise of the movie is and how far-fetched what the antihero (Gerard Butler) pulls off really is. I'd love to go into detail, but I'm struggling to do so without giving away the critical twists and turns of the movie.

So let me just say this: with Law Abiding Citizen you get a pretty decent thriller about a guy (Butler) that you don't want to mess with who a couple home-invaders do indeed mess with. The bad guys get caught and Butler allows the DA (Jamie Foxx) to exact this great country's due process on the bad guys...which fails. So Butler sets a plan to take out the bad guys himself and anyone else that was involved in the failure of Due Process of Law.

But man, the way this guy chooses to make his point, and the way he ultimately carries it out are where you'll be saying, "Hold on a second there." So check your brain at the door as I did, sit back and enjoy. It's like the small rollercoaster in the amusement park...it's fun while you're riding it, but after you get off you realize it wasn't that great.

Knowing that there would be some graphic scenes I decided to watch this movie anyway. I found the movie interesting, but the scenes of torture and mutilation was a bit much for my sensibilities. Definitly not for kids under 17 IMO. But I felt like a deer in the headlights, not really wanting to see such things but not being able to move my eyes from it. That said, I had difficulty getting the graphic scenes out of my mind at bed time so I tried to compensate by watching a lighter movie afterward.

I do agree with the viewers who felt it should have had a different ending. I think it would have been a better ending had he gotten away sort of like Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs". THAT would have left me with an OMG feeling.

There's something to be said for a movie that's exactly what it advertises itself to be. I loaded up "Law Abiding Citizen" because all the trailers had promised me a gloriously shlocky revenge caper combining the revenge elements of Death Wish with the over the top planning of the Saw series.

And it does have some of that style. Cars are attacked with weaponized bomb squad robots, government officials get killed through wacky cell phone bombs, and other over the top methods of destruction. In the style of many hokey violent movies, a character exists purely to give a speech on how thoroughly trained and bad ass Clyde Sheldon is.

But oh lord does it lose steam every time it thinks its making an interesting point. The movies notion that the justice system isn't working because it just isn't brutal and vengeful enough is never given enough teeth to be meaningful. The way Sheldon's family is murdered in the beginning is nonsensical and is never given much context. Bad men enter his house and kill people, because old men firmly believe that this is a thing that happens all the time. Wouldn't reprisal have represented a more compelling reason? Evil men don't deliberately murder your family without some sort of pretext. Maybe his sketchy military weapons history would have inspired it? But no, they're evil bad men who did it because they're drug-using criminal scum.

He loses of course, because that's how it has to happen in a Hollywood film, but the moralizing delivered by Academy Award Winning Jamie Foxx feels like a lazy bit of tacked on finger-wagging.

I think this movie would have benefited from going either more exploitive or more poignant. The belligerently conservative Old Testament God moralizing about the judicial system seems weird and clumsy, and doesn't match well with the ludicrous plot twists necessary to make the trashy narrative possible.

Make a point. Make entertainment, but don't half-ass both.

It's got a few twists and some stomach-turning violence and it's just another revenge flick in the end. And the end is so boring to boot. When a movie starts off with the killing and rape of the hero's loved ones, it really doesn't matter much what's next: the writer has already signified that he's lazy.

Add some good actors (Meaney, Butler) and a fair actor trying way too hard (Foxx), saddle them with some insipid dialogue, kill a bunch of people, add a dash of torture porn, throw in some half-baked cries for justice, and bake at 350 for 108 minutes.

Remove and let sit and realize you're looking at something that really ain't very tasty.

When I first saw the trailer for this, I was intrigued with the entire concept of the film. Gerald Butler plays a engineer who goes more than a little mad after his family is killed and the killer gets off scotfree via plea bargain by turning in and blaming it all on his accomplice. Flash forward to ten years later and Gerald's character unleashes a revenge scheme so grandiose and detailed you can't help but be impressed with his determination. Jamie Foxx plays the DA who allowed the plea bargain to go through and who now has to watch Butler destroy everyone involved in the original murder trial before he goes after the American "justice" system itself.

This is a great concept but there are a few problems. All of the protagonists in the film are utterly unlikeable. They are shallow short sighted and well, they're pretty much self-obsessed jerks without any redeeming qualities. Butler's character, as insane as he is, is the most likeable person in the film and you find yourself rooting for him if only because a) everyone he is targeting does deserve it and b) everyone he is targeting come off worse than this serial murderer.

My other issue is the ending. I'm not going to spoil it, but there are some huge plot holes and things that could happen based on time, location and prior characterization throughout the movie. It really kills the suspension of disbelief and you end up being disappointed with the overall package because of how sloppy the ending is.

At the end of the day, this is certainly worth watch, but I can't say it's worth owning.

First of all, I had never heard of this movie until my fiance put it into the dvd player. It is surprisingly not bad. However, it is graphic and bloody. That being said it was entertaining and well thought out. Butler played his "crazy/vengeful teacher" part well. Briefly, it is about a man who watches his wife and daughter get killed. When the DA doesn't handle the case the way Shelton wants, he waits ten years and plots mass distruction of the criminal system. It bears saying a second time: BLOODY!!!!

It was a great movie. Gerard Butler played Clyde Shelton with a passion that makes you believe in him and actually understand where he is coming from. People grieve in different ways and his way was to kill everybody that did not do "justice" to his wife and childs case. Shelton was a wonderfully planned out character and so were the others. The movie was an edge-of-the-seat thriller until the ending. He used methodical process throughout the whole movie and then all of a sudden he does not see this coming? Are you serious? This man thought out a damn-near perfect plan and then all of a sudden he just does not see them going to this place and finding him? The ending was very dissapointing almost to the fact that it brought down the whole movie. He could have been entered in with the likes of Saw and Hannibal Lecter. But the ending sucked. Badly done. Try that one again.

As one reviewer shared earlier, this is a movie that can generate many a (meaningless) chatter. It then serves its purpose as light popcorn fare since it is merely meant as entertainment, not a social thesis. And on that level, it fairly succeeds and it is a waste to exhaust any mental workouts breaking down the many, MANY bad filmmaking flaws. THE END.

But, if this doesnt help the reader any on how to approach this product, then read on ....

Why does it get a giant Megan Fox thumb's up and yet its accompanied by a only three rating? This is what is referred to as a guilty pleasure. If made well, the plot, as implausible as it may be, will keep the audience intrigued, even if just to cross the I's and T's for the viewer before they walk away. For any potential snub reader, riddle me this: what draws and continues to bring audiences back to movies such as Avatar, Star Wars, Austin Powers, Pretty Woman (a HOOKER who lands a billionaire!), It's a Wonderful Life (about a prick who gets to redeem himself only after seeing his family HAPPY without him?), Field of Dreams (a second chance of warming to your parents after shunning their existence the first time around!), etc....? It's called SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF. Now, the second element necessary to enjoy a guilty pleasure is the casting.

In order for the audience to enjoy and want to revisit pricks, hookers, idiot spies, intergalactic peacekeepers, et al. the actors must have the ability to sell the characters they are portraying, since usually the script will be inane and the writing can have you wincing. For some outrageous act of faith, Tinseltown has transformed Foxx into a bonafide star. Though not and never will be familiar with Redemption (his first Porsche), Collateral and Jarhead offered fine performances because Michael Mann and Sam Mendez are expert craftsmen who knew how to arrest his comedian/broham tendencies. If not for Butler, this movie would have been a complete disaster. And Butler will never be confused for a thespian in the Olivier, Welles, Day-Lewis, Hopkins mold either. (And yes, i am quite aware he was a stage actor in the UK).

Does anyone remember Stealth, The Kingdom, Miami Vice, Ray (which he portrayed on numerous occasions in his comedy skits!), The Soloist (even Downey, Jr. looked embarrassed)? This dude is not a professional actor, though does have a massive ego. (watch The Great White Hype, to enjoy Foxx on film).

I understand Hollywood will continue to search through coal mines (jewel metaphor reference), bar clubs (Vin Diesel), gimmick forums (wrestlers), etc.... for the next cash cow and if you were in charge of studio projects, you would as well. Blockbusters and guilty pleasures is what makes it possible to produce Oscar quality films, it's a fact. But, it doesnt mean as an audience, we have to always swallow what they attempt to feed us. So in this case, give it a spin and try to enjoy the movie's twists, violence, moral agitators for what it is, a Cape Fear/Death Wish knock-off with an atrociously misplaced main lead in the story.