Law Abiding Citizen


2.5/4

Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Colm Meany, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Viola Davis

Rated R for Strong Bloody Brutal Violence and Torture, A Scene of Rape, and Pervasive Language

It’s a chilling thing to be at the hands of a madman who is capable of anything at anytime, and no matter what you do, he’s always one step ahead.  Done right, like in David Fincher’s masterpiece “The Game,” these can be brilliant thrillers.  Done poorly, they completely fall apart.  F. Gary Gray’s “Law Abiding Citizen” falls somewhere in-between.  It is watchable, and on certain occasions a little suspenseful.  But Kurt Wimmer’s script pushes our “suspension of disbelief” too far for Gray to completely hold it together.

Mild mannered inventor Clyde Shelton (Butler) is just getting ready for dinner when two men, Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte) and Rupert Ames (Joshua Stewart) break into his house.  They rape his wife and brutally murder her and their daughter.  Even worse, the ADA, Nick Rice (Foxx) is an egotistical jerk who is more concerned with protecting his conviction rate than getting justice, and he makes a deal with Darby in exchange for a death sentence for Ames.  Clyde is devastated, but Nick is unrepentant.  Ten years later, something goes wrong with the execution, and Ames dies an extraordinarily painful death.  Evidence points to Clyde as the killer, but even with him in jail, more and more people involved in the case are turning up dead.  Now Nick has to find a way to stop a man who doesn’t need to be physically present to kill people.

There are two reasons why this movie doesn’t work.  One, the two main characters are largely unsympathetic.  Clyde may have revenge on his mind, but aside from about a minute, we don’t see him at all with his family, so the question of whether or not he succeeds is largely irrelevant.  Likewise, Nick is a selfish prick whose ego is so large that it takes him a long time and many bodies for him to realize that he’s not in control of the situation.

The second problem, the suspension of disbelief, would be easy enough to overlook if the characters were worth caring about. This sort of thing is a given for many movies, particularly this kind.  But because we don’t have much of an opinion of anyone on the screen, we start looking at how well the plot holds together (and it falls apart on even cursory observation).

Butler and Foxx are good actors, and they do what they can with their characters, but Gray’s approach is cold and clinical.  Gray has managed to do the impossible, create sympathetic and well-developed characters in an action-thriller, but “Set It Off” had a much better script than “Law Abiding Citizen.”  To be fair, it is watchable, and it does gain some momentum towards the end, but it’s a little too preposterous for even the most undemanding viewer to appreciate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Desert Flower

2/4 Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson Rated R for Some Violent Content, A Scene of Sexuality and Language The problem with "Desert Flower" is not that Waris Dirie's story isn't suited for the cinematic treatment or that the actress playing her isn't acceptable.  The problem is that director Sherry Hormann doesn't do a good job of telling it.  This is a poorly focused film that can't decide what it wants to be about or what it wants to say. As is the case with many a true story, the life of Waris Dirie is too amazing to be made up by a Hollywood screenwriter.  This woman fled an arranged marriage as a child, spent years as a servant to a Somali diplomat in England, survived on the streets, and was discovered by a fashion photographer while working as a janitor.  Then she became a supermodel and UN Ambassador in the fight against female genital mutilation. Waris experienced a lot in her life.  Telling it all in a...
Read more

The Road

3.5/4 Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Rated R for Some Violence, Disturbing Images and Language "The Road" has to be the most downbeat, depressing and cynical movie I've ever seen.  That's not meant as a criticism, but a fact.  This is a tough movie to get through, but not a chore.  Those who venture in will find their time well spent, albeit not in a necessarily pleasant way.  Then again, if a movie is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy, "pleasant" isn't a word one would hope to be used to describe it. The film takes place after the world has ended.  How it happened is not explained because it doesn't matter.  But any hope of the Earth recovering from what happened has long since gone.  A man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) are travelling together, trying to "get to the coast."  There are few people left, although considering what many are doing with the goal of survival, that's a good thing...
Read more

My Left Foot

 2/4 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Alison Whelan Rated R (probably for Language and Brief Violence) "My Left Foot" feels like one of those movies designed to win Oscars and nothing else.  In fact, it did win two Oscars for the immortal Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, but apart from their strong work, there's not much else to remember about this movie.  It's well-acted, but all in all it's pretty dull. Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) is getting recognized for his work in order to raise money for the disabled.  Despite being a talented artist and writer, Christy is not the ideal candidate for the job.  He's an alcoholic jerk who makes no secret of his lust for women nor is he above using his disability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  Interspersed with his attempts to seduce a woman tasked with looking after him while he awaits his entrance are vignettes from his childhood.  Most notably how his mothe...
Read more