Like watching The Joker without makeup

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2010)

Law Abiding Citizen is a decent film if not for the amateur ending. The story's good and that's something one would expect from the film's writer, Kurt Wimmer.
Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a family man forced to witness the brutal murder of his family. A flaw in the justice system lets the killer go free and Shelton takes the law into his own hands. Shelton threatens to kill more people if the justice system is not corrected and he makes his demands to Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), the prosecutor who must stop Shelton before more innocent people die.
The movie picks up after Clyde Shelton's first murder. Shelton readily admits to killing the man who murdered his wife and daughter. Now in prison, Shelton makes demands to prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) or he threatens to kill people. While in prison.
Gerard Butler's performance is fantastic and I felt like it was comparable to Heath Ledger's Joker as the movie's bad guy who got all the attention. Butler is very convincing as a cunning madman who only wants to see the world share his misery.
The two disappointments in the film are Jamie Foxx, who is usually reliable, and of course the poor ending to an otherwise good film. This might be confusing but the movie's ending is actually quite fitting. The movie could have ended a la 'Silence of the Lambs'.
Instead it saved us the dreaded prequel/sequel to look forward to. Hopefully.