Law Abiding Citizen is Anything But **1/2

Rating: 6/10 (11 August 2010)

Interesting premise soon goes awfully awry. Is the father, who lost his wife and daughter in a home invasion a victim of what happened, or just a plain psychopath who was set off by what happened or was in the killing business before tragedy struck him? Remember in the opening scene, before the tragedy occurred, the man was tinkering with some device.
The picture goes off as our killer not only takes revenge on those who went softly with the killers but with the public by and large. In another words, he gets the city of Philadelphia to cringe.
In the role of the prosecuting attorney, Jamie Foxx exhibits a rather cool intelligence. He sees in the end that family always matters. Don't we really reach this conclusion at the end of any film?
Viola Davis, as the mayor, is really getting a reputation for taking the most out of the small roles given to her. We saw this in her supporting Oscar nominated performance in "Doubt," and we see it again in this film. Davis takes full advantage in her brief part to show how a mayor of an urban center can take full throttle in any given situation.
This movie should have been viewed as a tragedy but instead falls into the trap of dealing with psychopathic, violent behavior.