Movie Review - Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

Starring Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Regina Hall, and Viola Davis
Directed by F. Gary Gray

Nicely directed, but absolutely ludicrous is the way I'd describe Law Abiding Citizen. F. Gary Gray (who directed the underrated The Negotiator in the 90s and the moderately amusing The Italian Job in the aughts) keeps this flick moving along at a very brisk pace, but he is forced to work with a ridiculous script, silly dialogue, and he's unfortunately unable to get a good performance out of Jamie Foxx (then again, is anyone able to get a really good performance out of the overrated actor?).

Gerard Butler is Clyde Shelton and, at the start of the film, his wife and child have been brutally murdered. Two men are charged with their murder, but Philadelphia district attorney Nick Rice (Foxx) seals both of their convictions by using one of the men to testify against the other, thereby giving one of the murderers a death sentence and the other only a five-year prison term. Cut to ten years later and the prisoner on death row's lethal injection goes awry, causing him an incredibly painful death, and the murderer released from jail gets butchered in a ghastly manner. Who committed the crimes? Clyde, the emotionally shattered widow. Clyde's sent to prison, but he's not done his murderous spree. Even from behind bars, he's exacting revenge on those he feels let the one murderer walk free after five years.

First off, let's just say that the way Clyde manages to kill people is pretty damn cool. Unfortunately, all of these elaborate traps seem to rely on people being in the right place at the right time...it's as if he knew where people were conveniently going to be at 'x' hour and was able to plan his crimes around their time table. It's honestly a little too difficult to describe my issues with this issue without revealing too much of the plot, but everything felt a little Saw-esque in terms of the crimes he was committing (granted, I've only seen bits and pieces of Saw movies -- the final 20 minutes of nearly every one while waiting for them to end at the theater and I've seen the first one edited on tv)...elaborate killings that rely on people being right where the killer wants them to be. And the way that Clyde manages to do these things that's revealed in the final act of the film was just silly -- completely unbelievable that he would be able to get away with what he was doing. I guess there's only one solitary confinement cell in prisons...

Second, the dialog here is ridiculous. Everything seemed forced. Jamie Foxx's character was given some ludicrous things to say simply to advance the plot. Despite the fact that the film moved at a brisk pace, it felt like there were several scenes that simply could've been excised and it would've made no difference to the overall film.

As far as the acting goes, Foxx is lukewarm at best. I didn't believe him as a D.A. for a second. Butler is decent, although his American accent is incredibly weak (at least, I think he was playing an American...the accent went back and forth so many times, I'm unsure). Other than that, Butler is actually quite engaging onscreen. With this, The Ugly Truth, and Gamer this year, I find that he's able to rise above an average script and come out looking better than the overall movie itself. And I loved every second Viola Davis was in the flick as the mayor of Philadelphia. She brings a strength to the screen that's not too overpowering to be unbelievable. (That being said, the ridiculous cameo by the real mayor of Philly, Michael Nutter, made people laugh at a time when the audience really shouldn't have been laughing. Stupid move on the director's part there).

So, unfortunately, despite the fact that the story overall never bored me and the director kept the flick moving, the silliness of the plot, the corny dialogue ("He's got police costumes...and other things..."), and a less-than-average performance by one of the film's leads make this one that I can't recommend.

The RyMickey Rating: D+