A flawed, but entertaining piece of throwaway cinema

Rating: 7/10 (3 March 2010)

On an ordinary evening, Clyde Sheldon (Gerard Butler) watches helplessly as his wife and child are killed in front of him. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a hot shot lawyer with a record conviction rate he is not willing to sacrifice, takes the case and manages to send one of the criminals responsible for the murder to death row. But the real perpetrator gets off with a much lighter sentence. Rice sees nothing wrong with this based on the lack of evidence, but Sheldon does not feel justice is served. Zap forward ten years later, where Sheldon begins his quest for justice and people involved with the case are picked off one by one.
When I first saw the trailer for Law Abiding Citizen, I was immediately reminded of David Fincher's brilliant psychological horror-thriller Se7en. Whereas Se7en revolved around the investigation of John Doe and his randomly chosen victims based on the idea of the seven deadly sins, Citizen revolves around a wronged man choosing his victims based on their involvement with his case. The film takes away the suspense of trying to figure out who is doing it, and attempts to focus more on the why and how. For the most part, we get to watch every kill and get to slowly piece together how and why everything is happening. There is nothing random about any of the events in the film, and the suspense lies in the comprehension of what is occurring, not in the horrific one-upping randomness of the events.
But the momentum that Citizen has in its early moments is lost quite quickly as the film goes on. While Se7en basked in toying just as much with the two leads as it did the viewer, Citizen seems content at laying everything out rather easy and waiting for the viewer to pick up on the reasoning and eventual twist. I will admit that I was surprised by that twist, but a lot of what leads up to it feels very mundane. There is a very thrilling aspect to the events taking place, but after the first few characters bite the dust, there just seems to be very little life left in the story. It feels like it was an intriguing idea to start that gets tapped out far too quickly. More maddening (albeit very intriguing) is the absence of some things most films would find key. We learn very little about Sheldon (outside of what the trailer already tells us), we learn very little about Rice (outside of how dedicated he and his team are to his records), and we learn almost nothing about the murders that start the film off and are the reason for what happens in the first place. Not all of these things are bad, but they do manage to feel bothersome at times anyway.
Despite all this, Kurt Wimmer (the man responsible for the hideously underrated Equilibrium and the just plain hideous Ultraviolet) manages to still make the story entertaining and interesting enough to sustain the audience for the entire ride. The intensity of some of the sequences, and the sheer bloody and unflinching brutality of some of the murders more than make up for the flawed screenplay. He seems to be a stronger writer than a director, and I can only hope he sticks to writing. F. Gary Gray, a veteran action director, does not exactly bring a distinct style to the film, but competently brings the story out quite well.
The acting, much like everything else, is flawed but still not all that bad. The supporting cast unfortunately gets very little to do outside of attempt to hold their own against Foxx and Butler. There are a couple of cast members who do quite a bit for the film, specifically Leslie Bibb and Colm Meaney (who has been all but missing in action from mainstream films as of late), but the script never really lets their characters flourish outside of being one-note and one-dimensional. Practically everything we try to learn about Bibb's character is either never elaborated on, or brushed off entirely. I would have liked to have seen more of a presence from all the supporting actors, but these two specifically could have done with more material.
Foxx has failed consistently at trying to perform anywhere near the majesty of his Oscar-winning turn in Ray. There is no doubt that he is a great actor, but he has yet to prove since why we all believed he could pull Ray Charles off so well. In Citizen, he seems a bit too muted. In the scenes where the world begins to close in on his character, we can see the pain coming through, but never really get to see Foxx attempt to shine the way we know he can. He just seems to be going through the motions, hoping the lines will do the work and not his acting. It is a decent enough performance, but that is it.
Butler on the other hand does his best work here since 300. He just looks like he is having fun with the role, and chews right into the twisted individual Sheldon quickly becomes. Watching him interact with Foxx's character and running circles around him is reason enough to watch the film. His performance is not incredible by a long shot, but there is more life and depth within Butler at any given moment than there is in the entirety of the film. When the film goes limp, Butler just keeps on putting everything into the role. My only qualm is with his uneven accent, which seems to be a consistent problem for him.
Law Abiding Citizen is an entertaining piece of throwaway cinema. It is incredibly flawed, but there is enough value in what is good about it to make it a worthwhile watch. Just do not go in expecting something on par with Se7en.
7/10.