Law Abiding Citizen

Plot synopsis:
Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a Philadelphia engineer, witnesses the rape and murder of both his wife and five-year old daughter at the hands of two burglars who break in his house: Clarence J. Darby (Christian Stolte) and accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart), leaving Shelton emotionally scarred. He is told by career-minded prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) that the case was compromised by a bungled forensic investigation and Shelton's testimony cannot incriminate either man because he blacked out during the incident. Rice, interested in maintaining his 96% conviction rate, makes a secret deal with Darby: in return for pleading guilty to third-degree murder, he will provide testimony that will send Ames to death row for what is, essentially, a robbery charge. Shelton is left feeling betrayed.Ten years later. Ames is executed via lethal injection. Due to an alteration in the chemicals, he dies in agonizing pain. Initial evidence leads to Darby, who is alerted to approaching police by a mysterious caller who tells him where a pistol he can use to his advantage is. The caller tells him if he wants to escape the police, he will come to where he is. At the meeting place, Darby realizes that the caller and his savior is none other then Shelton. Darby tries to shoot him with the pistol, only to be discover it is a trick gun, injecting him with tetrodotoxin, paralyzing him, but leaving him fully conscious. After restraining him and making preparations to ensure his prolonged awareness, Shelton slowly tortures and dismembers Darby, saying the words Darby told him 10 years before: "You can't fight fate." It is later revealed that Darby was found in 25 pieces, and after an investigation, Rice and his team suspect Shelton.The next day, a local SWAT unit bursts into Shelton's house to find him waiting for them, and he doesn't resist arrest. In an interrogation cell at the jail, Rice covertly congratulates him for removing Darby from society, then asks for a confession. By all appearances co-operative, Shelton offers a full confession in exchange for a deluxe mattress in his cell; Rice reluctantly agrees. At his hearing, Shelton opposes a motion to deny himself bail, citing obscure legal precedents. Judge Laura Burch (Annie Corley), who also presided at Ames' trial, agrees, but Shelton launches into a tirade against the court's preference for legal technicalities over justice. He is removed for contempt of court.After receiving his mattress and delivering the confession, in which he confesses not only to killing Darby but also to having altered the lethal injection chemical that made Ames' death agonizing, Shelton bargains to give the location of Bill Reynolds (Richard Portnow), Darby's attorney, who was reported missing three days before, in return for an expensive steak dinner from Del Frisco's to be delivered at precisely 1 p.m., along with his iPod. Warden Inger (Gregory Itzin) demands multiple precautions, resulting in the food arriving at Shelton's cell eight minutes late. Rice and Detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney) find Reynolds buried alive and only minutes dead, with Inger's delay causing him to suffocate, his oxygen tank having been set to shut down at 1:15. Dunnigan explains that because Shelton received his lunch at 1:08, they were 7 minutes late instead of getting to Reynolds in time to save him.Shelton and his cellmate, who had threatened to hurt him if he refused to share, eat the steak dinner together. Shelton then murders him by using the steak T-bone as a knife. He is sent to solitary confinement. Rice's assistant, Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb), finds evidence of contract payments to Shelton from the Department of Defense, so the head D.A. Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill) takes Rice to meet a CIA operative Bray (Michael Kelly) who worked with Shelton. They learn Shelton was once a CIA "brain" working in a black ops think tank on unconventional methods of killing targets. Bray tells them to assume that he can see them and hear them at all times, he is always watching. He also warns them that he's only in jail because he wants to be in jail, and that each thing he does has a deeper meaning. When Rice asks how they should deal with Shelton, Bray advises them to "walk into his cell and put a bullet in his head", otherwise they cannot stop him. As he leaves he says, "If Clyde wants you dead... you're dead".Rice and Cantrell convince Judge Burch to violate Shelton's civil rights and restrict his visting privileges. Minutes later, Judge Burch answers a cell phone which explodes, killing her instantly. At the prison, Rice confronts Shelton, who says these killings are not about revenge but about the failure of the justice system. Unless he is released with all charges dropped by 6:00 a.m . tomorrow, he will kill "everyone."Members of the DA's staff congregate until 6:00 a.m.. They are sent home, but bombs planted underneath their cars go off and kill those inside, including Sarah. Shelton was still incarcerated, so Rice assumes he is using an accomplice outside to help.At Sarah's funeral, an unseen man wearing black clothing powers up a remote controled drone armed with a rocket launcher and a .50 caliber machine gun. The kills Cantrell as he is riding in a SUV with security detail. Rice is appointed acting District Attorney by the uptight mayor (Viola Davis) whom is angry at Rice for his failure to protect everyone.While looking for evidence that Shelton may have accomplices working for him, Rice receives information that points to Shelton owning a small disused garage next to the prison. Rice and Detective Dunnigan arrive at the garage and while looking around, they find a tunnel system leading to all the solitary confinement cells, along with a large supply of armaments. Apparently over the past 10 years, Shelton had dug the tunnel system from his garage to the prison and when it was finished, he deliberately had himself arrested and sent to solitary confinment in order to sneak out of the prison to carry out his killings undetected and all by himself, and then sneak back into his cell the very next day. Dunnigan opens a small hole and finds that it leads to Shelton's cell, which is empty.Disguised as a janitor, Shelton plants a cell phone activated napalm bomb in City Hall, planning to kill the mayor and anyone attending her meeting. Rice, Dunnigan and Detective Garza (Michael Irby) infiltrate the 5th floor and find the bomb directly under the 6th floor, where the mayor is situated at a security meeting. Garza attempts to disarm the bomb, but is unsuccessful and warns them to leave it alone. The three men then decide not to tell the mayor what is going on, as Shelton will be watching and will detonate the bomb with any sign of detection. They then decide what to do with the bomb.Upon returning to his cell through the underground tunnel, Shelton discovers Rice there waiting for him. Shelton offers one last deal, but Rice says that he no longer makes deals with murderers, which Shelton appreciates. Rice says to Shelton that if he detonates the bomb, "It's a decision you'll have to live with for the rest of your life." With his wife and daughter long dead and feeling that he has nothing to live for anymore, Shelton decides to detonate the napalm bomb anyway, but as Rice exits and locks the cell, he calmly says ," Like I said, it's a decision you'll have to live with for the rest of your life, which I think now is about 25 seconds". He then begins to flee the building. At the same time, Detective Dunnigan seals the hatch in the back of the cell to ensure Shelton doesn't escape. Shelton realizes that the bomb was placed under his cot, but merely smiles and stares thoughtfully at a bracelet his daughter had made for him which says "DADDY". The cell explodes, with the last shot of Shelton alive being of him looking up with an almost satisfied expression.In the final scene, Rice is seen attending his own daughter's music recital, an event he had previously put off due to work. He rises with the crowd as they cheer her on after the performance.

Tags: fantasy, murder, stupid, violence, plot twist, psychedelic, revenge, sadist

Review:
I can totally relate to his feelings of anger over the flaws in the justice system and his desire to take matters into his own hands - to make things right.The ending was disappointing but the rest of the film was not and I liked it overall..
Clyde Shelton's ( Gerard Butler ) wife gets murdered in the beginning of the movie and justice doesn't prevail because one of the killers is only sentenced for 10 years.
Watch it with a time progress bar and stop the movie before the last 15 minutes, then close your eyes and make up your own ending and I promise you it will be way better then the awful piece of movie you just skipped....
"Law Abiding Citizen" starts out like a modern-day version of "Death Wish," spends a few moments aping the "Saw" franchise, then settles in as a cat-and-mouse crime drama centered around the theme that the American legal system seems designed as much to thwart justice as to enact it.The movie stands firmly in the long tradition of wish-fulfillment fantasies in which the victim of a broken legal system - functioning as a stand-in for an equally frustrated and helpless audience - finally says enough is enough and takes matters into his own hands, even going outside the limits of the law, if that's what it takes, to achieve justice.As with the Charles Bronson character in "Death Wish," Gerard Butler's Clyde Shelton witnesses his wife and daughter being brutally raped and murdered by a couple of armed intruders.
That's where Nick Rice, well played by Jamie Foxx, comes in, the decent but by-the-book prosecutor who helped set up the deal and has now, along with everyone else involved with the case, become a prime target for Clyde's take-no-prisoners reign of terror and retribution.The one thing that distinguishes "Law Abiding Citizen" from similar films in the genre is that it's not afraid to have a deeply troubled, possibly even psychotic, character at its core.
And, in the process of reaching its climax, the movie takes a plot turn so ludicrous and credibility-defying that the whole thing pretty much crashes and burns at the end.That being said, Nick's interactions with Clyde are fun to watch and, thanks to taut direction by F.
I am just not sure which is which.I am trying to avoid spoilers here, because it is a definite film you must check out because it is a great new take on the prison based thriller genre, which provides 90 odd minutes of great entertainment with lots of twists and turns to keep the story fresh.My main criticism is that the story seems to twist and turn so much it gets itself into a nasty tangle.
The base of any thriller for an audience, is to want the protagonist to prosper at the downfall of the antagonist, but at the end, i was unsure which of one of the two mains, Nick Rice (foxx) or Clyde Shelton (butler) i should be 'cheering' for.Each Character has their fair amount of being the good guy, but both were more of the bad guy, a very confusing aspect to a thriller.Never-the-less, there are some brilliant performances and a very entertaining fresh story kept me glued to the screen for the entirety of the movie.****/5.
Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) and Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) are excellent as "frenemies." They still sympathize with each other, in a way, as each teaches the other a lesson.
Ridiculously Over The Top. Obviously, this movie is a sort of "Death Wish"-inspired movie, with the main character (Clyde, played by Gerard Butler) out to get revenge after the gruesome murders of his wife and daughter.
Instead, 10 years later, he sets out to take revenge on the justice system (mainly represented by the prosecutor Nick, played by Jamie Foxx) that agreed to a deal with one of the guys who invaded his home in exchange for testimony against the second.The idea has been done.
What was supposedly an excellent run riddled with implausibilities became even more ridiculous in the final 10 minutes that you'd wonder if anyone had any inkling of a logical conclusion, or had decided to cop it all out to avoid being branded as anti-establishment, and as a result, just plain ordinary lacking the guts to just stick with its plan to the end.Jamie Foxx stars as hotshot (assistant) district attorney Nick Rice, who boasts an extremely high conviction rate, a fact that he repeats many times, and we learn his dirty little secret was to make deals with the guilty - charge them for less, but they still get charged anyway.
Too bad his latest case was, in my opinion an open and shut one, and he steps on the shoes of the victim, Clyde Sheldon (Gerard Butler), making a deal with the murderers of his family such that one gets sentenced to death while the other gets a short jail term.
Which is a walk in the park because he's a clandestine strategist, but who had misguided faith in the system which explains why he sits around and does nothing, until 10 years later, which is acceptable according to an old Chinese proverb, to exact some form of revenge, making this like a torture porn outing, but without much of the gore on display.I'd appreciate the film for its take on vigilantism when the system fails you through its corruption and incompetence, and just how much the limit actually is in order to push a man over the edge to declare war on just everybody, and pissing on the system while at it.
Turning the system's tools and procedures over its head and onto the same organization may seem like guilty fun, but when the payback gets a wee bit sophisticated each time, you'd start to wonder on the plausibility of it all, even though it was established that Clyde Shelton is a man who can kill you softly while looking directly at you.The film boils down to which side will you be on, and who would you root for.
Although Clyde has a valuable lesson to impart to Nick in that what's important is doing the right thing, it did go a tad overboard in order to amplify its idea, especially with sweeping statements like how the entire city got gripped by the apparent acts of terrorism.Gerard Butlner plays his character crazed since he's a man with absolutely nothing to lose, though it's quite unbelievable that for someone who's well versed in clandestine operations to be ambushed like you see in the trailers, without so much of a counter-strategy in place.
Gary Gray failed to allow you to feel Nick's fear when his own family got threatened by Clyde.But the real stinker was the insult to the audience's intelligence in the final moments which tried way too hard to be clever in introducing an impossible twist which has to involve time travel.
Law Abiding Citizen is about as close as a movie can come to being good while still having a ridiculously poor script.
Unfortunately, leaves the audience with a ridiculous and laughable tale with a story and ending that is so far-fetched, you will scream at the top of your lungs to get your money back.Why Foxx and Butler made this movie is beyond me.
Gerard Butler turns out not to be you or me, no he's superman performing superhuman feats of total unbelievability accompanied by the regulation massive explosions etc.Yes it has its little twist in the plot but that doesn't compensate for the complete moral vacuum that exists for every character and the story itself.
And this latest disappointment makes nothing any better.Law Abiding Citizen had the potential to be a really tough, raw action thriller and in some ways it sort of does.
Perhaps a mis-guided belief in the hollow lie that is the "war on terror." In this film, we start out with a fatally flawed legal system and an egregiously maligned citizen, with the potential for writing a fine morality play; but the movie falls flat on its face when the antihero (Jamie Foxx the lawyer) is permitted absolute redemption.
While Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is the hot-shot lawyer who first tried Clyde's family's killers and is now paying the price for making a deal with one of the men to turn on his partner and send him to death row.Despite plenty of inventive mind-numbing violence on show, this film suffers from two major drawbacks in my opinion which restrict 'Law Abiding Citizen' from simply being an enjoyable action-thriller and instead turns F.
Instead of enjoying the film for what it is, a popcorn-flick, you are instead constantly questioning the motives of the characters and what the central point/theme of the film is trying to communicate to the audience.Secondly, despite having both Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler in prominent roles and a backroom cast containing the likes of Gregory Itzin, Bruce McGill and Sarah Lowell there isn't one dominant character in the film.
Not exactly Oscar winning material.With a gleaming Hollywood cast of Jamie Foxx, Bruce McGill and the safe-grossing Gerard Butler, 'Law Abiding Citizen' certainly had potential to be something more than just another 'revenge/retribution picture', but unfortunately a poor script, a terrible plot and awkward pacing make this film one to miss this year..
The action was good and I didn't notice any time during the movie that I was looking around disinterested in what was going on "on screen".Although a little predictable it was still fun to watch the events unfold.
this movie is bad in so many ways: 1)Jamie Foxx- It's time to say it - the man can't act for @hit!
In the whole movie he have only 2 looks: Angry and semi angry all the other are just trying to do a bad imitations of Denzel (sorry foxxi your not in his level as an actor or charm even in a million years) 2)The script is so stupid makes you want to cry i had five times during the movie where I said out loud what the next sentence is going to be and i was right!
It would have also helped with more history and depth on the Butler character to help us explain things from his point of view.The verdict on Law Abiding Citizen is it a good 5 years too late to get away with another movie portraying the bad guy as the "good guy".
I have seen the movie more than 5 times ,still i feel like i want to see it one more time just for Gerard butler's acting..!
He was able to display that anger in a way I do not believe many others could have equalled.People who will like this movie will be those who feels justice has too often gone awry and needs adjusting and also those who pull for the underdog.As good as the story was and as good as performances were for the most part, the movie disappoints in the end.
Okay, here's what it's about: with a nod to Michael Winner's winning story about some guy's Death Wish(1974), Clyde Shelton (Butler) decides to avenge the cruel murder of his family by home invaders when justice is denied by a corrupt system and officials.
Aside from the last 10 minutes, this movie rocks & yeah I also didn't like the way they showed how he managed to kill all those people from his prison cell.Butler says to Jamie Foxx's character Nick Rice that "This Will Be Biblical".
This movie had a lot going for it, albeit Jamie Fox's acting was not very good (he has to be the most overrated A list actor in Hollywood!), however the ending was so idiotic and contrived it almost ruined the movie for me.
Sure, it's a massive stretch to believe just about anything Butler and Foxx do on screen, but damn they look cool doing it.F. Gary Gray adds to his muddled output of thrillers; this film coming after the decent The Negotiator, the second-rate A Man Apart, the underrated The Italian Job remake and the disappointing sequel Be Cool.
Gray can also lay claim to an awe-inspiring, fiery slo-mo shot near the end, a particularly bravura moment for the director.Butler and Foxx add plenty of style to a flick that keeps the term 'popcorn-movie' in business.3 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic).
Jump years into the future and Clyde has turned full circle and decides to take a full out revenge against the killers and the justice system.I'm sure most people are thinking, "well bonkers (yes bonkers, I said it) this sounds like a culturally significant movie that challenges the morals of today's justice system with such a plot line as that," and that is precisely what the movie trailers wanted you to think.
In short, Law Abiding Citizen is misleading, and at the very best, killed by limitations.The main reason for this is because it spends the first part of the movie making you feel sorry for Clyde.
It then proceeds to realize that it might be getting a little too intellectual for the normal blockbuster crowd and proceeds to add explosions and to completely drop all the points it was trying to make but inserting the picture of the story writers genitalia in your face.No, in all reality, what Law Abiding Citizen feels like to me is a movie that got cut short, either in money, time, or manpower.
If you feel this movie is lacking just give it another five or ten years and someone may come along with a good enough schedule or budget or idea to actually get the point that got lost in the explosions in Law Abiding Citizen in some other high brow titled movie.Final Rating 7/10..
Law Abiding Citizen could have been an interesting film that asked an important moral question; instead we get a violent, holey mess with a stupid ending.
But with a film like Law Abiding Citizen, he should have taken a better look at Kurt Wimmer's script and seen what he had to work with.
As actors, good ones, like Jamie Foxx and Colm Meaney and Bruce McGill go through the motions of the script, it becomes oddly, not as interesting as its premise would make us believe.Part of this, I wager, is on Butler's end.
It can't be both styles - dark/deep and crazy - and it should have been either/or; it had the potential to be something that goes for broke, but the absurdity that mounts isn't the right kind with the tone of the film, not to mention the predictability that comes out of the script as it is (for example, any time a character says they wonder if they really did make the right call with the Shelton-family killer, the next scene, dead).
Yes you will get glued to this movie if you like thriller movies.It keeps you surprising, makes you think and wonder whats gonna happen and you cant speculate none.I always liked Gerrard Butler and Jamie Fox, and they sure have acted well.Movie goes real smooth with a super mind fighting against the whole system trying to mend its rules of course with some impossible and inconceivable techniques but come on its just a movie isn't it.
This movie talked the talk but didn't walk the walk!!The first half of this movie looked very promising, and managed to create a realistic sympathy towards the victim/bad-guy?!The scene with Clyde(Gerard butler) where nick(Jamie fox) asks him if it's about vengeance even reminded me somehow on jack Bauer from 24.
When one of his family's killers escapes death row after striking a deal, Shelton spends ten years planning revenge, using his skills as an inventor to punish not just the men who committed the crime, but also those working in the justice system who failed him.Law Abiding Citizen starts off promisingly enough in Death Wish mode, but once it enters Saw territory, things get really, really dumb, with Shelton's meticulous planning meaning that he can carry out his revenge even from inside a prison cell, having somehow predicted the every move of legal eagle Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) and his Department of Justice colleagues.
action packed, suspenseful the first time around, lots of good twists, good storyline for the most part, and even some good acting.I just can't get over the ending so now every time i watch it and think to myself its all going in the right direction for "Clyde" to win.
Films like Law Abiding Citizen show us they can be creative, but not quite as good as some other modern murder movies.
After his 3rd victims, he (I may say the script writer) has become uncreative and predictable which make me feel like watching another episode of "Law and Order" TV series.After watching the movie, I keep thinking why they didn't make his family murder as a conspiracy.
So how does the director explain then that Foxx, the supposed good guy of the film, instead of using the justice system he represents to hold Butler accountable for his crimes, does instead just murder him in his cell.
"Law Abiding Citizen" is a movie that got me angrier than "Transformers 2" and more disappointed than "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." Yet, I'll probably watch it again.
That's why I'm going to watch it again, despite how terrible the ending was.Without giving anything away, the movie spends all of its time making us know that Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is a meticulous planner who's serious about getting even with the system of justice that allowed his wife and daughter's true killer to go free with a mere 3-year sentence.
Through the entire movie Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) was not a character that I liked or sided with, while Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) was human and easy to empathize with.
At what point of the film were we supposed to start liking Jamie Foxx's character.