I do not stand up for the substandard characters and the ludicrous premise, but I did enjoy the movie on the fact that I could not predict what was going to happen next

Rating: 7/10 (31 October 2009)

Perhaps a movie as needlessly violent, preposterously staged, and nonsensically ludicrous as "Law Abiding Citizen" deserves the negative publicity that it has already received. Yet I did find some mild movie pleasure while experiencing it. No, I do not stand up for the overly vulgar screenplay, the substandard characters, the unbelievably harebrained plot, and the eye-rolling banal clichés that I spotted here and there, but due to the fact that I could rarely predict what was going to happen next, it kept me mildly interested despite its rational complications and I give the movie a marginal note of recommendation.
"Law Abiding Citizen" stars Jamie Foxx as a Philadelphia district attorney who finds himself the central point of a series of brutal killings when a deranged vigilante (Gerard Butler) takes out his anger on his family's recently-released killers and then upon the entire city. Foxx captures Butler and imprisons him, yet chaos ensues and it becomes a race against time to discover what accomplices, if any Butler has on the outside, and to stop him before it's too late.
In a basic plot description, "Law Abiding Citizen" sounds like the standard vigilante movie and in a way, I guess you could say it is. It's just as harebrained and lopsidedly silly as the many I've seen recently. But on the other hand, I guess you could say it's not on the same level. It's a step above because again, it's nearly impossible to tell what's going to happen next. The tone, spirit, and style of "Law Abiding Citizen" reminded me of another, much better gloomy vigilante thriller, "Se7en" from 1995. As Gerard Butler's character shocks the other characters with his scene-chewing performance, we too sit and wait for what he's got under his sleeves next.
But the problem that costs "Law Abiding Citizen" its potential status as a truly great thriller is the fact that it does not have a feeling of connection or personality or conflict between or in any of the characters. I like Jamie Foxx and I think he pulled off an on-par performance, but he was just playing the same old, stand-up-for-the-right-thing flawed protagonist that I've seen a thousand times over. I've seen enough of the man who spends all of his time at work and not enough at hope with his wife and children and then ponders over that as he risks his life doing his duty. Gerard Butler, too, I like him and his performance, but he doesn't have any fresh or startling personality as a villain. His character's personality is also the same old vigilante we've seen before. His actions aren't, but his manner is. While his schemes did surprise me, the way they were alerted to me by the character did not. Whereas say the actions of Hannibal Lecter from "The Silence of the Lambs" are along a similar line, but they dropped my jaw and sunk with more impact because of the development and the fleshed-out personality of the villain who was carrying them out. After all, every big moments needs a good lead. In addition, Foxx does not have any real connection to his wife or friends and fellow investigators, they just stand around and serve more or less as props. Mostly, the scenes between characters are just time-fillers. A minor complaint I also have concerns the screenplay, which is packed with vulgarity. Now, I have no problem with foul language in thrillers, for it has become rather formula in Hollywood now, but when it's thrown again and again where intelligent, thought-provoking dialogue could have been placed, it runs a few scenes down.
I have been rubbing the flaws of "Law Abiding Citizen" into its face pretty hard during my review. But again, although these flaws as marring and do cost the movie a lot, I did enjoy it, but not because of the characters or the screenplay or the story—the three elements in a movie that matter the most. Simply because I could not predict (most of the time) what would happen in the next scene, I enjoyed it. But it could have been so much more.
And one footnote, I personally am getting a little bit tired of the action movie cliché where a character sets of a timed explosive, walks away from it, the bomb goes off, and the character doesn't even flicker an eyelash as flames and debris fly around him.