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Is it worth $10? Yes
Truth, justice and the American way are under fire in “Law Abiding Citizen,” which takes an unflattering look at the legal system while never forgetting its place as ridiculous Hollywood entertainment. The story is fresh and interesting, and the moral and ethical issues raised are good food for thought, but an excess of plot holes and explosions unseat all attempted seriousness.
Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) has a right to be angry. His wife and daughter were murdered by two home invaders, and due to some inadmissible evidence District Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is only able to have one of them sentenced to death. The other, Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte), gets to go free after five years in prison.
Ten years pass. Darby is out. Clyde is still angry, and wants to teach the system a lesson. After kidnapping and torturing Darby, Clyde is arrested. Here’s where things get interesting: From prison he’s still killing those involved in Darby going free – with everyone from the judge (Annie Corley) to Nick and his co-workers (Bruce McGill and Leslie Bibb) at risk. It’s kind of like “Death Wish,” only with an actual plan. And if you’re thinking Clyde has someone on the outside working with him, you’re wrong. So how is he doing it? With a lot of advanced planning, and with a lot of things conveniently (and unfathomably) happening exactly as he envisioned.
An ethical question is nonetheless raised: Is Clyde’s conduct okay? Yes it’s revenge for his family, but murdering everyone involved in his pain hardly seems justified. And yet audiences are cheering for Clyde, one murder after another, even when it’s people who don’t deserve it. Even when it’s people who were doing their jobs as they’re supposed to be done, which is the same way they’ve served the legal system for years.
The message from director F. Gary Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer is, of course, that the system is flawed and needs to be changed. But Clyde goes to such extremes it’s hard to take anything seriously, especially when his actions are truly uncalled for, such as frightening Nick’s young daughter and blowing up innocent people.
A message movie in the guise of a Hollywood thriller is more common than you may think, as all movies reflect society. But “Law Abiding Citizen” offers quite the paradox: It wants to condemn the legal system, but it also embraces violence and murder – two things the legal system also condemns – while making its point, which is that both sides need to change if we’re to live in a just world.
Did you know? “The basic idea was that a man who had been betrayed by the system decided to teach the system a lesson—from inside jail,” said producer Lucas Foster. “We want to believe that when someone is arrested and they’re put into the system, that’s more or less the end of it. In our movie, it’s just the beginning.”
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