Law Abiding Citizen (F. Gary Gray, 2009)

Law Abiding Citizen is a film that thinks it’s much cleverer than it actually is. As it stands, it’s a load of shite. It’s a film that starts with an interesting premise, plays it close to enjoyably hockey and pisses it all away with plot points that get gradually more stupid. Being that this is written by Kurt Wimmer of Equilibrium and Ultraviolet fame, that’s hardly surprising.

The main problem is that neither of the central characters, played by Jamie Foxx (who isn’t very good here) and the ever ham-fisted Gerard Butler, are ever likable. It’s Butler that we’re supposed to install all the empathy with but as he becomes increasingly more volatile, he becomes horrid and repugnant, murdering cell mates and assassinating innocent colleagues of Foxx’s without any signs of remorse. In fact, the more chaotic it gets the more fun here appears to be having. How can you support a man as cold blooded as this?

Foxx is egotistical and too sure of himself. This would’ve worked had he realised the errors of his way whilst the carnage takes place around him but he never changes, always thinks he can best Butler and only manages to succeed in the end by pure fluke. To say the character development of both is non-existent would be understating things. The resolution is also weak, rushed and wholly unsatisfying.

The thing is that Law Abiding Citizen is a film that, with a little polish and a script re-write, could’ve been at least fun. But it isn’t and I found myself laughing more and more as each new plot development garnered and even more ridiculous twist. In the end it gets too flat out snooker loopy for it to be in anyway enjoyable. Not quite Eagle Eye stupid, but close. Had those involved gone completely left field and had Butler being possessed by aliens that would take them to his home planet if he completed the task at hand or something, I would’ve had a little more respect for the filmmakers.

As it stands they didn’t and I don’t. It doesn’t even have the audacity to be “so bad it’s good”. It’s just dull, trite and very, very nasty.

1.5/5