Pure Dumb Fun!

Rating: 8/10 (3 November 2009)

Law Abiding Citizen is a hardcore action/suspense film starring Gerald Butler and Jamie Foxx. The movie begins with Clyde (Butler) being portrayed as a family man. His wife and daughter are murdered less than two minutes later. Nick Rice is a district attorney who arranges a plea bargain for one guilty man to be executed and the other to spend a few years in prison. We cut to 10 years later, when Clyde is able to rig the execution, giving him a painful death. He also tortures and murders the man who set free and is arrested promptly afterwards. In prison, Clyde makes a series of demands that must be granted or else he will start killing people. How he somehow manages to kill people while he's locked up is a mystery, but that's what makes the film so damn entertaining.
The intense plot description above would normally sound like spoilers, but all this happens in the first half hour and is all revealed in the trailer. You might also notice that Clyde's intentions are very similar to Dexter's. He is taking the law into his own hands when he's not pleased with the outcome of a trial. I normally wouldn't mind this, but there were a lot of noticeable aspects, such as when Clyde shows the pictures of his family to his victim. At least it had a unique twist on that when Clyde takes his time to torture his victims and leaves everything behind as evidence.
Law Abiding Citizen is directed by F. Gary Grey. He did The Italian Job, which I thought to be a high quality remake. Although, he also did the mediocre Be Cool. He doesn't make the greatest films, but they're definitely not terrible. I didn't have a problem with his directing, I thought it was a very well made suspense film. As for the acting, Jamie Foxx has been better in the past. This isn't another Oscar worthy performance from him. Gerald Butler seems to be perfect for this role, though. These kinds of roles that he plays in movies like this, 300 and Gamer are so much better roles than the awful romantic comedies he's been doing recently. I don't understand how anyone thinks that these action movies are ruining his reputation as a romantic lead, when it's exactly the opposite.
As a critic, I think that this is a fairly difficult film to review. On one hand, it's very dumb. On the other hand, it's highly entertaining, even exhilarating at times. It's difficult to know which one is more important here. The critics here clearly have sided on one angle giving it 22% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. I'll have to disagree with the consensus there. When I pay for a ticket, I would want to have a good time. I will try anything to have a good time, but if I can't then I just don't like the film. In a movie like Law Abiding Citizen, you just have to turn your brain off and be genuinely entertained. Just train yourself to laugh at cheesy one-liners and plot holes. Some of the worst films of all time also may happen to be the most fun to watch with the redeeming quality of unintentional comedy. People praise these films for their many flaws and that's exactly what should become with Law Abiding Citizen, but to a smaller scale.
To get an idea of the dumb scenes can be found anywhere in the film. For some reason, Gerald Butler gets naked before he gets arrested, which isn't mentioned at any point in the film. Also, when the film jumps forward 10 years later, the characters either look even younger or exactly the same. It's not believable that they would look like that after 10 years. I also hated the ending. It was just very satisfying and unsatisfying. The ending brought the movie down for me. There was even a scene where they said the title of the movie like they were winking at the audience. Although, I'll have to admit there were some pretty clever plot twists and kills. The movie even made me jump at certain points.
To conclude this review, I'll definitely recommend Law Abiding Citizen for the entertainment value and the fine performance from Gerald Butler. I'm going to give Law Abiding Citizen an 8.5/10.