Law Abiding Citizen (2009): *

Revenge dramas often feature a victim of a miscarriage of justice, someone on a journey to bring their own justice to the wrongdoer. Clive Shelton (Gerard Butler) is such a character in Law Abiding Citizen, in pursuit of dishing out his own retribution to those who killed his wife and daughter. Clive is not content with the two men who committed the crime; he is also after his lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) and the local Justice Department, for being more concerned with high conviction rates than serving truth and justice.  With his assistant Sarah (Leslie Bibb), Nick has to find a way to end Clive’s series of murders. 

Kurt Wimmer’s screenplay is bad. In a typical film about revenge, the audience is often presented a choice between empathising for the wronged man (Clive) or for the man trying to uphold the justice system (Nick), no matter how flawed it is. It is impossible to root for either Clive or Nick in Law Abiding Citizen. Although Clive did not get the true justice he wanted for his family, his actions will sorely test the audience’s limits of empathy. His actions become even more inexcusable when Clive starts to kill people with the most tenuous connections to his family’s case, all in the name of bringing down the corrupt justice department. Nick is a self-righteous hypocrite, declaring that he will stand by the current justice system and his choices, even as his co-workers are murdered around him. Funnily enough, whenever one of Nick’s colleagues murmur any doubts about how the current justice system works, they are bumped off within a couple of minutes. Clearly if they had the same self-conviction Nick possessed, they might have survived this silly film. The dialogue does not help matters, it is painfully stilted, over-explanatory and flabby. 

Law Abiding Citizen’s violence was at times distasteful and not in the giddy exploitative sense. It tries to be elaborative with the violent acts but it is fairly dull, relying on explosives and chemicals, but mostly explosives for cheap shocks. The cinematography was dull, the score was generic and there were little thrills in F. Gary Gray’s film. 

Gerard Butler’s performance is far too silly to make Clive seem threatening. If anything, Clive acts more like a teenager, sullenly moaning and throwing a tantrum, than an adult with a real grievance. Jamie Foxx brings a small bit of charm to his character Nick; it doesn’t help that Nick appears to be annoyed for the majority of the film, with a sprinkling of broodiness. Clive and Nick deserve each other in Law Abiding Citizen. Leslie Bibb’s performance is decent, considering the material she had to work with.    

Law Abiding Citizen is guilty of being poorly written and being dull in every other aspect.