“Law Abiding Citizen” isn’t the first vigilante antihero film — it certainly won’t be the last — and it aims to question the flaws of the American justice system through violent and implausible means.
As if his status as a badass was still in question after “300,” Gerard Butler (“Gamer”) plays Clyde Shelton, a ruthless and contriving killer out for eye-for-an-eye justice after his wife and daughter were murdered. At the very least, he is a corrupted human spirit with aspirations to literally destroy the Philadelphia justice system from the inside. It is also convenient he has a background in highly advanced weaponry and a deep understanding of unorthodox ways of killing people.
Jamie Foxx (“The Soloist”) plays Nick Rice, a rising assistant district attorney who sees it necessary to commodify justice by making questionable plea deals with convicts, haplessly watching Shelton sabotage a lethal injection, construct a robotic machine gun and even tunnel into prison. All of these ruthless acts and more are conspicuously presented on screen, making “Law Abiding Citzen” at times a cinematic representation of “Grand Theft Auto.”
Through systematically murdering members of Rice’s staff for their devotion to an apparently crooked justice structure, Shelton is not presented as a vile and maniacal serial killer but rather as a borderline protagonist who excels in committing outrageous acts of gore and violence. For most of the film it is apparent that screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (“Street Kings,” “Ultraviolet”) will finally have Rice pay the piper after years of legal and moral misdeeds. Shelton is an unstoppable force of tactical murder until, of course, Rice stops him in a plot twist that is nearly as unbelievable as the murder methods that Shelton used in the first place.
Aside from the questionable plot mechanics, this weak attempt to play on morality is rife with stilted jargon and mediocre performances from secondary roles. Lines intended to be salient closers like “I did what I had to do,” and “What happened to right and wrong?” are mistimed and far too frequent in the script. Policemen are stereotypically blue-collar and well-meaning, aspiring public servants haplessly mangle the differences between the letter of the law and courtroom justice and authority figures are often unrealistically incompetent to thwart Shelton or understand his motives. The one bright spot in the cast is Bruce McGill (“Animal House,” “The Legend of Bagger Vance”), whose small part is regrettable.
The film fails most in the conclusion, which offers no reconciliation for the crooked timbers of humanity or the American justice system. Rice answers Shelton’s eye-for-an-eye murders with a larger, stronger eye-for-an-eye response and nothing really changes in the legal system.
At times, many of Shelton’s condemnations of the legal system permeate the hearts and minds of Rice’s staff, leading the viewer to believe that the film is promoting vigilante justice in its purest, most violent form. The characters that have faith in their commitment to public service are invariably the ones who meet their sudden, contrived demise first.
Vigilante classics like the “Dirty Harry” series (and just about anything else with Clint Eastwood) are successful because they look at isolated incidents and suggest that sometimes the law must be flexible or even broken. “Law Abiding Citizen,” meanwhile, seeks to exonerate a mistreated vigilante from his unrestrained assault not only of officers of the law but of the law itself.
In the end, one vigilante defeats another and all legal recourse is left by the wayside, leaving little consideration for the flaws of human nature and society. Upon leaving the theater, viewers who accept the aesthetic thesis of “Law Abiding Citizen” will expect to go out into a world where the only way to find justice in life is to disregard the law and the people who defend it.
2 stars out of 5.
