Nasty intent, and execution...

Rating: 4/10 (23 February 2010)

If you've ever watched "The Texas chainsaw massacre" and thought it would have been a whole lot better if "Leatherface" was treated sympathetically, you may enjoy this movie. Seeing the ads for this movie I thought it was some sort of bog standard vigilante movie. What separates it from that genre, I think, is the 'twist' in the 'hero' of the piece. Perhaps you could intellectualise the movie and presume that it takes the genre to its extreme, logical conclusion. Well, okay. All I saw was a movie with a heart of darkness...an insight into the American psyche...a fixation with 'justifiable homicide' in which the vicious murder of your family is a "blessing" in that it allows these gun lovin' folks to show us how "righteous" their blood lust is.
Years ago, as a child, I saw "Death wish" on video. Perhaps by the standards of the day it too was extreme. By comparison, "Law abiding citizen" is torture porn, if not explicitly, then by leaving you in no doubt what manner of atrocities are committed on the 'deserving' criminals. Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a family man whose life is destroyed by a particularly vicious and brutal home invasion. The context seems implausible, and the nature of the crime even more so. It's basically the pretext to 'justify' his subsequent actions. That's why the crime is so nasty.
Released around the same time as this movie is Mel Gibson's comeback, "Edge of darkness". I may have seen the original BBC TV series that this was based on, but aren't certain of that. I doubt if Gibson's version closely follows the original. In any case, I only raise this other movie as an example of superior story-telling. The crime there is more motivated, and Gibson's character doesn't descend into some sort of horror movie psycho, like Shelton does. Perhaps this is where the 'intellectualising' comes in...why am I not sickened by the murder of Jews during World War II yet am horrified of revelations that Nazis made soap out of the corpses of Jews and lampshades from their skin? Well, I suppose that one can rationalise and say that in war, death is certain and you can invent justifications. But when you start making furniture and cosmetics out of your victims, that is just beyond justification, right? No, Shelton does not make lampshades out of the skin of his victims, but he says what he will do to them, and we see him about to embark on some of the things he has promised to do. That's what I find so nasty about this movie...it's torture porn wrapped in the flag of righteousness.
Not being from America, I find all the justifications for Shelton's actions flimsy...he often rails against the legal system...he sounds like what I imagine a rabid Fox 'News' 'journalist' would sound like on this subject.
That's my take on this movie...it's a Fox 'News' story...and wet dream, all rolled into one.
If you don't like your revenge fantasies to turn sick, I'd stay away from this movie...go see "Edge of darkness" instead...much more intelligent...inclined to see the BBC version again, too.