Genre: Drama/ Thriller
Runtime: 109 minutes
Year: 2009
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Leslie Bibb, Bruce McGill, Viola Davis, Regina Hall
Description: A frustrated man (Gerard Butler) decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family’s killers free.
Review: “Law Abiding Citizen” starts with a bang. When the happily married engineer Clyde Shelton opens the door, he is knocked down and forced to watch his family being slaughtered. No long intros, no build-up, we get right into it.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the prosecution messes up the case and the judge won’t accept Shelton’s testimony because he lost consciousness during the robbery. Prosecutor Nick Rice is also more interested in attractive deals than in justice, as a result of which only one of the two robbers is sentenced to death, and the other (the initiator of it all) gets off with a short sentence and will eventually be a free man again.
We skip to ten years later. Nick Rice now has a family of his own and is one of those present at the execution of the convicted offender. That execution goes terribly wrong. Instead of it being painless, the execution is as painful as possible. The next day, the other perpetrator is killed in the most horrible way possible and the video of this torture fest is delivered to Nick’s home address. The suspicion immediately falls on Clyde Shelton, and he is arrested. It seems like the end of the story, but it’s just the beginning. Clyde wants revenge, not just on the two bad guys who slaughtered his family, but also on the system.
“Law Abiding Citizen” is a highly original variation on the vigilante theme, which made a comeback in the 00s. And many with success ("Taken", "The Brave One", Death Sentence"). Citizens taking matter into their own hands, because the were abandoned by the court.
Originally Gerard Butler was supposed to play Nick Rice, but at the last moment he chose the role of avenging family man Clyde Shelton. Butler is really good and this film stands out because of on ingenious screenplay. It constantly misdirects the audience. But don’t think too much about the plot twists afterwards, because you will find a bunch of plot holes. Jamie Foxx is also very strong as Nick Rice.
“Law Abiding Citizen” is a fast, exciting film with a lot of violence but not hard to stomach. It’s not subtle or credible, but somehow that doesn’t matter. It’s a good, solid, entertaining thriller.
Rating: 3,5 / 5
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