When important issues are trivialized

Rating: 4/10 (19 January 2010)

The core concept of this film made it an excellent candidate for griping, pulse-pounding cinema with a message. There is this seemingly ordinary man, Clyde Sheldon (Gerard Butler). One night he and his family are attacked, only him survives. The main culprit gets off easily thanks to the parody that can be the justice system and a career-driven prosecutor (Jamie Foxx). We are quickly introduced to Sheldon and his family and we feel for him when everything is taken from him, destroyed. On the other side of the coin, Jamie Foxx plays an interesting character in Nick Rice. When the film starts, Rice is a young, ambitious man who seems already jaded by the system, unaware that behind each case, there is a human story. But we still sense a decent man, a family man as well just like Clyde. Nonetheless, Rice makes a deal with the man who killed Clyde's family. This all takes place in the first 15 minutes of the movie or so, then the rest of the film takes place ten years later, when Clyde comes after everyone who was involved, killers and lawyers alike.
What makes this movie extremely interesting early on are the lack of clear drawn moral lines. Both Sheldon and Rice are flawed individuals in an imperfect, cruel world. But the movie goes south very, very fast as the "Hollywood factor" is cranked up.
First and most important script mistake: Clyde is not an ordinary man. He's a tech genius and super assassin. Congratulations to writer Kurt Wimmer Gary Gray for making us relate to that dude early in the film only to make him yet another superhuman. When Clyde goes on a rampage, the plot becomes so far-fetched and unbelievable, it destroys much of the underlines themes that made the movie click with people.
A great many people are dissatisfied with the holes perceived in modern justice systems. We see the flaws and the maze of procedures. We would like the accused to have their rights, but we also want justice for victims. Many of us have felt at one point or another that justice was not served and have felt disempowered. The premise of this film strikes a chord because the thought that an average joe might try to rectify this appeals to us. But he's not an average joe.
Second script mistake: as the movie evolves, Clyde goes from being a misguided guy out for his own brand of justice to a megalomaniacal caricature, half-way between a comic book villain (think Magneto) and a terrorist out for mass destruction.
Meanwhile, the seemingly arrogant, jaded D.A. Nick Rice doesn't seem to evolve at all in the 10 years since this incident happens. And we're not really exploring his character, inner issues or doubts he could have.
All the grey zones, the lack of black and white that this plot built in the first 10 minutes quickly erode into a story that is black and white, with lines clearly drawn. Clyde is the bad guy. Nick the good guy (and a boring, inefficient one at that).
The actual rest of the film? Lots of explosions and incidents that seem to come right out of an action thriller movie like Die Hard... only the whole structure of the film is that of a crime thriller, not an action movie. Because of that, because of the lack of humor (this is the plot of a serious film, executed like a humorous blockbuster) the film is terribly dysfunctional.
The result is a forgettable entry that doesn't qualify as an effective drama, or an effective action film... or an effective anything. It's just a missed opportunity.