Director: F. Gary Gray
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Colm Meany, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Viola Davis
Running Time: 109 minutes (plus trailers)
“I'm gonna bring the whole fuckin' diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna be biblical.”
Law Abiding Citizen, the newest film from F. Gary Gray, director of The Italian Job and a few other movies I haven’t seen, is an action revenge thriller that can be summed up nicely by a short exchange between its two lead characters – Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a mastermind CIA operate who’s family is murdered by petty criminals, and Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), the career oriented ADA who makes a deal with the killers in order to maintain his high conviction rate. The exchange goes a little something like this:
Shelton: “You're the one who makes deals with murders yeah? Well I've come to make mine. Release me.”
Rice: “Or what?”
Shelton: (pauses for dramatic effect) “or I kill everyone*”
*please note the emphasis on the word “everyone.”
Needless to say Rice turns him down. And of course, Shelton makes good on his word. After killing the two criminals he is arrested, but from his prison cell he continues to carry out a series of elaborate and brutal murders against public officials in an attempt to change the justice system that failed his family, whilst Rice must race against the clock to stop him.
Law Abiding Citizen is as violent and profane B-movie action thriller, a stupid but somewhat entertaining spectacle along the same lines of something like last years Death Race. Now I really enjoyed that film (check out my review, one of the first I ever wrote) and was hoping to have a similar cheesy experience with this one; and I suppose I did, only to a far lesser extent. The movie definitely has its moments; the above exchange being one of them; other highlights include the line of dialogue “fuck his civil rights” as well as one of the most unexpectedly bloody kills I have even seen (the kill itself wasn’t unexpected, it was just the amount of damage it caused to the unsuspected victims neck that caught me off guard. Trust me; you’ll know it when you see it).
The only reason I might be able to recommend this film is Gerard Butler’s character. Everything in this film involving him is excellent. Now keep in mind that in this kind of movie, what can be considered “excellent” isn’t the same as what you might call excellent in something by Bergman or Kurosawa. But excellent never the less it is. He has been perfectly cast in the role, delivering the surprisingly well written dialogue in a combination of playful, menacing, angry and totally fucking insane, depending on what the scene calls for. In one of the films tensest moments, he delivers a chillingly relaxed monologue about how exactly he is going to torture one of his victims; in another, he offers to exchange a full confession for an orthopedic mattress. Any time he was on screen, or any time his elaborate murders were being enacted, I was thoroughly enjoying the film.
Sadly, every single scene in the film that doesn’t fall into one of those two categories was an utter waste of time. Jamie Foxx gives an underwhelming performance as Shelton’s arrogant foil Rice, who despite technically being the good guy I had no interest in seeing succeed. What’s worse, he is actually (with the obvious exception being Shelton) the most interesting character in the film. Leslie Bibb plays his eager assistant; her most distinctive personality trait is getting killed by a car bomb (spoiler alert) whilst Colm Meaney is respectable as the detective character, but quite frankly the role could have just as easily been played by a shop mannequin with a sign around its neck reading “detective character”.
Continuing down the line we have Regina Hall as Rice’s wife who’s key scene comes when she…wait for it…gets mad at her husband missing their daughters cello recital. Thus the scriptwriters demonstrate in this clever way that Rice works too much. Viola Davis meanwhile, twelve months after giving a scene stealing performance in Doubt, is absolutely atrocious as Philadelphia’s mayor (it’s not helped by the fact that she is one of the most useless and whiny public officials ever depicted on the big screen). But never let it be said that I don’t give credit where credit is due: Gregory Itzin’s posture is perfectly cast as the warden of the prison where Shelton is incarcerated. Kudos to the costume department on the suit he wears too; it really helps sell the performance.
Now none of these characters would be enough to kill this movie, except for the unfortunate fact that we spent so much time with them. This is a B-movie. I don’t need prose. I don’t need well rounded characters. In fact, I don’t particularly want either. I just want to be entertained. And any time Gerard Butler was off-screen for more than about two minutes, I was bored. And boredom only serves to make the plot holes that might have seemed amusing instead start to irrigate. I mean come on; could Shelton really plan all these murders? And if he’s really that smart, could Rice really figure out his plot? And come to think of it, why is Rice doing all the work himself; doesn’t the district attorney’s office have clerks? (Admittedly Shelton did murder quite a few, but still.)
I still think, thanks largely to Gerard Butler, that Law Abiding Citizen is worth a watch; his character is just that compelling, in a ridiculous kind of way. But it’s not worth paying full ticket price for, especially when DVD offers the luxury of fast-forwarding through all the scenes he’s not in. This movie has actually converted me; I hated 300 and by extension its star, but the man does a really good job here. Unfortunately the movie gets far too weighed down in things like ‘plot exposition’ and ‘trying to make sense’ (I use quotation marks to express my contempt for these outdated concepts). It’s one hundred and nine minutes long; it probably needed to be about seventy five. Guess which parts I would have cut out?
Law Abiding Citizen is in theatres in Australia now
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Colm Meany, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Viola Davis
Running Time: 109 minutes (plus trailers)
“I'm gonna bring the whole fuckin' diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna be biblical.”
Law Abiding Citizen, the newest film from F. Gary Gray, director of The Italian Job and a few other movies I haven’t seen, is an action revenge thriller that can be summed up nicely by a short exchange between its two lead characters – Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a mastermind CIA operate who’s family is murdered by petty criminals, and Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), the career oriented ADA who makes a deal with the killers in order to maintain his high conviction rate. The exchange goes a little something like this:Shelton: “You're the one who makes deals with murders yeah? Well I've come to make mine. Release me.”
Rice: “Or what?”
Shelton: (pauses for dramatic effect) “or I kill everyone*”
*please note the emphasis on the word “everyone.”
Needless to say Rice turns him down. And of course, Shelton makes good on his word. After killing the two criminals he is arrested, but from his prison cell he continues to carry out a series of elaborate and brutal murders against public officials in an attempt to change the justice system that failed his family, whilst Rice must race against the clock to stop him.
Law Abiding Citizen is as violent and profane B-movie action thriller, a stupid but somewhat entertaining spectacle along the same lines of something like last years Death Race. Now I really enjoyed that film (check out my review, one of the first I ever wrote) and was hoping to have a similar cheesy experience with this one; and I suppose I did, only to a far lesser extent. The movie definitely has its moments; the above exchange being one of them; other highlights include the line of dialogue “fuck his civil rights” as well as one of the most unexpectedly bloody kills I have even seen (the kill itself wasn’t unexpected, it was just the amount of damage it caused to the unsuspected victims neck that caught me off guard. Trust me; you’ll know it when you see it).The only reason I might be able to recommend this film is Gerard Butler’s character. Everything in this film involving him is excellent. Now keep in mind that in this kind of movie, what can be considered “excellent” isn’t the same as what you might call excellent in something by Bergman or Kurosawa. But excellent never the less it is. He has been perfectly cast in the role, delivering the surprisingly well written dialogue in a combination of playful, menacing, angry and totally fucking insane, depending on what the scene calls for. In one of the films tensest moments, he delivers a chillingly relaxed monologue about how exactly he is going to torture one of his victims; in another, he offers to exchange a full confession for an orthopedic mattress. Any time he was on screen, or any time his elaborate murders were being enacted, I was thoroughly enjoying the film.
Sadly, every single scene in the film that doesn’t fall into one of those two categories was an utter waste of time. Jamie Foxx gives an underwhelming performance as Shelton’s arrogant foil Rice, who despite technically being the good guy I had no interest in seeing succeed. What’s worse, he is actually (with the obvious exception being Shelton) the most interesting character in the film. Leslie Bibb plays his eager assistant; her most distinctive personality trait is getting killed by a car bomb (spoiler alert) whilst Colm Meaney is respectable as the detective character, but quite frankly the role could have just as easily been played by a shop mannequin with a sign around its neck reading “detective character”.Continuing down the line we have Regina Hall as Rice’s wife who’s key scene comes when she…wait for it…gets mad at her husband missing their daughters cello recital. Thus the scriptwriters demonstrate in this clever way that Rice works too much. Viola Davis meanwhile, twelve months after giving a scene stealing performance in Doubt, is absolutely atrocious as Philadelphia’s mayor (it’s not helped by the fact that she is one of the most useless and whiny public officials ever depicted on the big screen). But never let it be said that I don’t give credit where credit is due: Gregory Itzin’s posture is perfectly cast as the warden of the prison where Shelton is incarcerated. Kudos to the costume department on the suit he wears too; it really helps sell the performance.
Now none of these characters would be enough to kill this movie, except for the unfortunate fact that we spent so much time with them. This is a B-movie. I don’t need prose. I don’t need well rounded characters. In fact, I don’t particularly want either. I just want to be entertained. And any time Gerard Butler was off-screen for more than about two minutes, I was bored. And boredom only serves to make the plot holes that might have seemed amusing instead start to irrigate. I mean come on; could Shelton really plan all these murders? And if he’s really that smart, could Rice really figure out his plot? And come to think of it, why is Rice doing all the work himself; doesn’t the district attorney’s office have clerks? (Admittedly Shelton did murder quite a few, but still.)I still think, thanks largely to Gerard Butler, that Law Abiding Citizen is worth a watch; his character is just that compelling, in a ridiculous kind of way. But it’s not worth paying full ticket price for, especially when DVD offers the luxury of fast-forwarding through all the scenes he’s not in. This movie has actually converted me; I hated 300 and by extension its star, but the man does a really good job here. Unfortunately the movie gets far too weighed down in things like ‘plot exposition’ and ‘trying to make sense’ (I use quotation marks to express my contempt for these outdated concepts). It’s one hundred and nine minutes long; it probably needed to be about seventy five. Guess which parts I would have cut out?
Law Abiding Citizen is in theatres in Australia now
