Review: 'Law Abiding Citizen'
Plot: Mastermind takes revenge on the legal system that cut a deal with his family's killer.
Bottom line: Certainly nothing wrong here that a new script, a new director and a couple of committed actors couldn't fix.
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb
Length: 1:48
Foxx and Butler in 'Law Abiding Citizen'
Photo credit: Overture Films | Clyde Shelton (Butler) saw his family killed, but hotshot Philly prosecutor Nick Rice (Foxx) makes a deal with one of the murderers, just so he can maintain his 96 percent conviction rate.
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Trailer: Law Abiding Citizen
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Scenes from "Law Abiding Citizen"
The words "dumb" and "thriller" are seldom used in the same sentence, and "Law Abiding Citizen" illustrates all the reasons why.
Not only is it a hapless crime drama about outrage and revenge, it provides the sad spectacle of a movie far less intelligent than the one its filmmakers thought they were making. Starring Jamie Foxx as a scruple-free prosecutor and Gerard Butler as the victim he cheats out of justice, "Law Abiding Citizen" (yes, it needs a hyphen, and a new script) has so many plot holes, preposterous procedures and impotent gestures that it would take till the sports section to list them.
Suffice to say, if a film's going to appeal to your worst instincts, you shouldn't be feeling bad about it before the credits roll.
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Clyde Shelton (Butler) saw his family killed, but hotshot Philly prosecutor Nick Rice (Foxx) makes a deal with one of the murderers, just so he can maintain his 96 percent conviction rate. Ten years later, when the other killer is about to be executed, Shelton re-enters the picture, with appallingly violent results.
Strangely, there's never any development in how the characters are perceived - we're with Clyde all the way, despite his homicidal mania, which is perpetrated even while he's in prison - a minor detail that's never really explained. Perhaps because Foxx is giving such a self-satisfied performance,
Butler steals the movie, and doesn't even strain himself doing it. But laziness is probably "LAC's" greatest virtue.
