Movie review: Law Abiding Citizen **

10/19/2009

Law Abiding Citizen is a glib, brutal, and preposterous revenge fantasy, a take-the-law-in-your-own-hands rabble rouser that taps into a lot of fears and genuine gripes about the American legal system. It's the sort of movie Mel Gibson or Clint Eastwood might have made back in the day - a man survives the slaughter of his family by thugs and sets out to get even, and then some.

Gerard Butler has the title role, Clyde Shelton, a "tinkerer" who is stabbed during a home invasion. Jamie Foxx is the politically ambitious Philadelphia prosecutor

who lets one of the killers get off easy so the other will be executed.

"It's not what you know, it's what you can prove in court," Nick Rice tells a distraught Clyde.

Nick is listening to his boss

(Bruce McGill). "In this job, your best asset is a short memory." But that's not Clyde. Ten years later, when one of the killers is finally executed, his elaborate revenge begins.

Citizen is a "You don't know who you're messing with" thriller, like Taken. Clyde may be a "Law Abiding Citizen," but he's got gadget skills and a sadistic streak. When he kills crooks and the legal eagles who kept them from justice, he makes them suffer. Almost all of them have terrifying seconds to realize their fate.

Nick knows who is doing this, even locks up Clyde. But since he's the ultimate quarry in this blood feud, Nick must see those around him die at Clyde's gadget-guru hands.

Butler gives Clyde a wicked glee at what he is doing, but only a hint of the humanity he lost when his wife and daughter were slain. His battle-of-brains-and-wills scenes with Foxx don't have a lot of snap, and since those confrontations are the heart here, that drains some energy off the film.

A rich canvas of character actors (Colm Meaney, Viola Davis) are mostly plot necessities. The Kurt Wimmer (The Recruit) script has a cruel wit, up until it falls apart in a dishonest and outlandish third act. Director F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) maintains his rep for action scenes that deflate on screen.

You would like to hope filmmakers, outside of the horror genre anyway, don't start from a place of utter cynicism. But we know exactly what we're dealing with in Law Abiding Citizen. It's a "Who dies next?" slasher film masquerading as a revenge thriller.