Conviction rate - or - Justice?

Rating: 9/10 (30 October 2009)

Law Abiding Citizen (2009) d. F. Gary Gray. Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx. After my second viewing I am sure the protagonists are well matched. Foxx as the Assistant District Attorney Nick Rice, in charge of the murder case involving the wife and child of Clyde Shelton (Butler), is so sure he is doing the right thing by doing a deal, that he forgets justice. It takes ten long years of planning for Clyde to bring his plan to fruition. But after he has killed both men who murdered his family, and tells Nick he has only just begun, doubts begins to form in Nicks bosses mind, and his assistant attorneys,Sarah Lowell. She says to him in a key scene "I'd like to know it was for more than just the conviction rate. I like to feel some of it was for justice." The slow dawning on Nick that maybe, just maybe, there is something more important than his career and that is what Clyde is showing him with all the mayhem. Foxx shows with very subtle expressions that he does get it and by the end in the cell with Clyde, both men are resigned to what will come. Nick leaves, and lets the fire bomb go off and Clyde, resignation and weariness on his face, awaits the holocaust.
Terrific film with two fine performances. The scene of the first killing by Clyde is gruesome but Butler and Gray subtly show the madness that ten years of waiting for justice has brought this man. Each step of his plan to kill those responsible for the injustice done to him and his family shows his brilliance, but also his descent to the dark side. Butler is spot on in the courtroom scene where he tells off the judge who went along with Nicks plea bargain and let the killer off with a 5 year sentence. Clyde's 10 years of plotting and planning, and reading the law, makes for a riveting scene and dialog.
The scenes of gritty warehouse areas in the gray dawn, or at night, bring to mind the great black and white films of the past. F. Gary Gray and his cinematographer have captured the film noir quality of light and dark, wet pavements, the shadowy faces, the bleak factory/warehouse areas, and the cold, physical and emotional, of the great 'classics' like "Kiss Of Death" or "White Heat." I score it a 9/10