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First off, let’s get this straight; Gerard Butler is a terrible actor. That being said, you do have to admire the man’s business acumen. Butler chooses movies that are either good or mediocre but capable of making a shit ton of money. Law Abiding Citizen appears to be a rare combination of both… it’s a quality flick that should be able to do some solid business. Of course, this is just a single moment in time and you can look for Butler to hit over-exposure levels in about fifteen minutes… especially if he’s going to get naked for no real reason in his movies… a process I refer to as going Costner.

Law Abiding Citizen is a clichéd tale to say the least. It’s one of those “justice” movies, where some dude who feels he was wronged by the justice system takes it upon himself to make things right. In this case, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) watches his family get murdered. The courts catch the dudes, but hotshot lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) doesn’t want to risk damaging his prosecution success rate by taking the case to trial, so he talks Clyde into accepting a plea bargain, which gets one of the killers the death penalty and one of them a five year sentence. Clyde gets all pissed and stews in his own juices for like ten years… and then he takes his revenge. Since Clyde is an ex-government agent who specializes in assassinating people with traps, things get a little interesting. Soon Nick Rice is looking for ways to stop Clyde’s deadly games… but is he enough of a match for the clever wit and detailed machinations of Clyde?

It’s up to you to figure out the answer to that question, but I’ll let you in on one piece of information… this movie is pretty damn fun to watch. It’s kind of like if the Saw franchise was a thriller for more mature people and the killer actually had a reason to kill people. Law Abiding Citizen is a solid thriller full of violence, some fun scenes, and a questionable moral outlook.

Kudos go to Director F. Gary Gray, who has quietly amassed one heck of a résumé over the years. Gray’s past films include The Negotiator, Friday, and A Man Apart. While most of those films were sleeper hits, Law Abiding Citizen could be the film that put Gray on the map. His handling of exposition and plot manipulation is excellent, and the film has a polished professional feel to it. The source material isn’t all that creative, but Gray’s direction allows for there to be some surprises here and there among the few iconic scenes of violence and carnage. The whole “moral dilemma” of the film is poorly handled, but it seems to be a problem created by a combination of Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler’s mediocre acting and the unfresh writing of the film. Still, Gray manages to overcome these handicaps to create a visually interesting film that manages to entertain despite its shortcomings.

As I mentioned above, the cast isn’t all that great. Jamie Foxx isn’t playing a retard, so he half-asses the performance and Gerard Butler simply doesn’t have it in his DNA to put forward a good performance… I suspect that somewhere in his genetic code exists the Guttenberg Gene. The supporting cast is even worse with only a few solid performances from Colm Meaney (Con Air, Layer Cake), Leslie Bibb (Trick ‘r Treat, The Midnight Meat Train), and Michael Kelly (Tooth & Nail, Dawn of the Dead). Michael Kelly is easily the acting highlight of the film… for all of the two minutes he’s in the damn thing. Viola Davis (Doubt, Madea Goes to Jail) is embarrassingly bad as the mayor of Philadelphia.

Some of the bad acting can be overlooked thanks to the films wonderful special effects. The film has a variety of kills, and Director Gray does an excellent job of setting them up so they are surprises… except for one scene involving a bunch of people getting into their cars. The effects are solid and brutal enough to prevent this movie from feeling like an old person’s movie… like Traitor.

Law Abiding Citizen isn’t the greatest flick out there, but it does entertain and it shows that Gray is a director worth keeping an eye on. I can only hope some studio somewhere gives him an actual good script and doesn’t saddle him with Gerard Butler again. With a different actor replacing Butler and an interested Jamie Foxx this movie could have been a seven or an eight easily.

Final Synopsis: This is a renter. You don’t need to go out of your way to see this in theaters, unless you generally love thrillers.

Points Lost: -1 for the poorly handled “moral dilemma,” -1 for a general tone of cliché-ness, -1 for bad acting from supporting cast, -1 for mediocre performances from Foxx and Butler

Lesson Learned: It’s still justice if you kill random people while making things right.

Burning Question: What is it that makes some actors go Costner?

Law Abiding Citizen
6/10

Tags: 2009, action, adventure, bruce mcgill, colm meaney, courtroom drama, f. gary gray, Gerard Butler, going costner, jamie foxx, josh stewart, latest movie reviews, Leslie Bibb, michael kelly, recent3, the guttenberg gene, thriller