The End , Oh Dear The End

Rating: 4/10 (9 June 2013)

I'm something of a sucker for vigilante flicks . As a human being so much is outside our sphere of influence . It's a bitter truth that nice guys finish last and the average human being is more sinned against than sinner and watching movies where everyday guys go around maiming , mutilating and executing vermin can be - if not cathartic - then certainly an entertaining way of spending a couple of hours . LAW ABIDING CITIZEN has all the makings of an entertaining revenge thriller . Gerard Butler an up and coming movie star from Scotland plays Clyde Shelton whose family get murdered by scum so takes the law in to his own hands and tortures the scum to death for which he finds himself facing prison . Shelton then vows vengeance against the law makers who put him in prison so there and then we're watching a film that has a slightly more original take where both law breakers and law makers are fair game for a crusading avenger
So far so good and you're able to empathise with Shelton and let out a cheer as he really goes to town on one of the people who murdered his family . Hanging , firing squad and lethal injection is far too quick for some criminals so it's nice too see a murderer being tortured to death by poison , castration and finally dispatched by having their arms and legs cut off with a hacksaw . The story then concerns itself with people in the district attorney's office being bumped off but it couldn't possibly be Clyde Shelton because he's confined to a maximum security prison . After all there's no way he could commit the crimes whilst in confinement
The problem is the law enforcement characters in general and Jamie Foxx's prosecutor in particular all know Shelton must be behind the revenge killings of the prosecutors . Why they would think this is never explained . After all they send bad people to jail every day including mafia godfathers and violent street gang members so why they blame Shelton for this lacks logic . Believing Shelton is responsible they also never jump to the logical conclusion he might be paying someone to carry out the killings on his behalf
Of course as it turns out Shelton is indeed responsible for the murders but the revelation as to how he can do this while confined to a maximum security prison is so ridiculous the whole film falls apart by this ridiculous ending . You don't need a very high IQ to see why this could never happen in real life . I thought some of the more contrived unlikely subplots of the gritty hard hitting prison drama OZ strained credibility but that was a fly on the wall documentary compared to the ending seen here which is a pity because LAW ABIDING CITIZEN had some potential but wasn't developed to its full potential