Law Abiding Citizen

Director: F. Gary Gray

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Regina Hall

I have to admit, I did approach Law Abiding Citizen with some trepidation. Its written by Kurt Wimmer, who many know I'm not the biggest fan of, since his works, whilst having intriguing ideas at their centre, never address the issues they raise properly and are often filled with bad dialogue between numerous gaps in plot and logic. The film's director, F. Gary Gray, has not been seen since the dreadful 2005 sequel Be Cool. And the trailer is terrible. However, the film itself did surprise me by not being totally terrible. And if that seems damning with faint praise, then you'd be right.

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is a loving family man and inventor. But that is cruelly shattered when two thugs (Christian Stolte and Josh Stewart) attack his home and kill his wife and daughter. When the judge throws out the DNA evidence and Clyde's testimony, his lawyer, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), makes a deal that allows the worst of the pair to escape with a lighter sentence, claiming that “Some justice is better than no justice at all.” Clyde, however, does not feel the same way. Ten years later, Clyde sets in motion his revenge on not only his attackers but also the legal system itself. Now Nick must find some way to move past Clyde's tricks and deceptions before he brings the city to its knees.

The first hour of the movie is relatively decent, mostly due to the fact that many of Wimmer's quirks are not as heavily in evidence. Although there is some rather awkward symbolism (Clyde's daughter makes a bracelet, which features heavily throughout and an execution is intercut with Nick's daughter's chello recital), it doesn't overwhelm the movie and neither does the occasional odd line. F. Gary Gray, notable for thrillers like The Negotiator, is well in his element here and the film has a confidence that does get it over some of its rockier moments – at least, early on, anyway.

The death scenes in the movie range from excellent to uncomfortably nasty. The best scene in the film comes from a quick shock moment, which made the entire audience jolt. However, the film's tone is somewhat unpleasant at points. An extended torture scene may be off-screen, but the lingering threat through the sequence is vicious. A part of this might be the way the film exists in a rather gray area, not just in terms of colour, but also moral ambiguity (the movie mirrors Butler and Foxx's situations quite subtlely, I thought). But the problem is the movie doesn't really give enough of a reason why Butler does what he does; this is not aided by a motivation change in the third act.

In fact, the worst part of this movie is the entire third act. Suddenly, everything I expect from Wimmer's writing not only rears its ugly head, but comes in abundance. The reveal of how Butler is doing these things from his cell is preposterious and it gets even more ludicrious, finally moving towards the dumbest ending of the year. Not only that, but suddenly Clyde and Nick are now given clearly defined roles as villain and hero, which rings false. It seems like a very hasty re-write or Wimmer didn't know how to wrap up the script. The ending of the film is so bad that it makes the rest of the film look even worse retrospectively.

In terms of performances, Jamie Foxx delivers his usual performance and comes across as somewhat standard. That means he gets easily overshadowed by Butler, who is extremely charismatic and entertaining, mostly because he gets the best lines in the script. However, even they can't fight some of the clunkier material, particularly some gratutious swearing in Foxx's role near the conclusion (he suddenly turns into an action hero, which is so unbelievably silly I had a hard time not tittering). The rest of the supporting cast are pretty much there to get dispatched in increasingly preposterous and explosive ways.

It doesn't help that simple logic works against the film. Why does Nick not tell everyone associated with the case to leave the city? Or for that matter, transfer Clyde to a different prison? Clyde would no doubt fire some legal jargon about his rights (Clyde's in-depth understanding of law in the intervening years provides some of the film's most entertaining verbal battles), but they never seem to try and only consider the possibility near the end. And why is the DA's Office running around like police officers? However, those are questions you'll likely find yourself asking after the revelation, when the whole house of cards falls apart.

Law Abiding Citizen has an interesting idea at its heart, but doesn't quite execute it properly, even if it does make a decent job at mirroring the two lead characters. Gerard Butler is very good as the antagonist, but its a much better performance than the film really deserves. The film becomes increasingly preposterious, with an ending that suggests heavy re-writes, because it utterly destroys any suspension of disbelief you've invested whatsoever. This is one that you can easily wait to arrive on TV for.