Film Reviews

Law Abiding Citizen

• Rating:
• Director: F. Gary Gray
• Starring: Bruce McGill
• Details: US/108mins 16

Looking at the trailer for Law Abiding Citizen, I was convinced it would be an action thriller with substance. A story of a man, whose entire family is brutally murdered in front of him, it appeared to give Gerard Butler - a charismatic actor - a chance to flex more than just his impressively acquired pectorals. While it does start out as something different, all be it abruptly so, it soon descends into a ridiculously over-the-top exercise in revenge. If Journeyman director F. Gary Gray wanted to just make something fun, then he mildly succeeds. But that is only if you didn't find the film's opening fifteen minutes, or so, in any way engaging.
Butler is a dedicated family man Clyde Shelton, who has his life turned upside down one evening when a couple of hoodlums knock at his door. Intent on robbing his house, they knock him out and proceed to kill his young daughter, then rape and kill his wife. Putting his judicial hopes in the hands of Jamie Foxx's ambitious prosecutor Nick Rice, he is appalled when he is told they'll be cutting a deal, and only one of the men will get sentenced to death. Ten years later, Shelton is back and really pissed off with everyone who had something to do with the case. Wanting to teach Rice and his colleagues a thing or two about justice, he starts killing lawyers, judges and seemingly anyone who has ever even thought about going to law school.
The most frustrating thing about this is that this really could have been something more. Butler is genuinely excellent at the beginning, but as soon as he turns into the genius, dastardly villain, it's all downhill. He's continuously struck down by a script that seemingly started life as a Saw sequel. Foxx is pretty much unlikeable for the entire production: even when Butler is massacring innocent people, you're still more inclined to side with him than Foxx's cocky District Attorney.
Gray's direction is suitably slick, and he works the action and ludicrous death scenes well enough, while Butler does show he is more than capable of delivering the dramatics. It's just a shame the script feels like it was written by a pissed off 15 year old who just had the crap beaten out of him at school.

Review by Mike Sheridan