LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is a competently made thriller that attempts to make up in panache what it lacks in credibility. It fails. Taking a distinctly right-wing point of view when considering the not inconsiderable problems with the American justice system, it shamelessly pushes all the right emotional buttons as it tells the tall tale of the titular character, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), who is driven mad by how the system chewed him up and spit him out.
Shelton has had the ill-fortune to have seen his wife and young daughter slaughtered by two home invaders, and then been told by Nick Rice (Jaime Foxx), a sharp and ambitious assistant DA, that the best that the system can offer is one turning on the other in a plea agreement. The result is that Rices conviction rate of 97% is intact, the actual killer gets a slap on the wrists, so to speak, the accomplice, who was less than murderous, gets the death penalty, and Shelton has 10 years to use his very big brain to re-create scale models of Da Vinci inventions while plotting a diabolically clever revenge. Its also pretty gruesome, that revenge, but, like the violence that begins the flick, its more implied than shown, yet no less awful.
During those ten years of Sheltons stewing, Rice has been on the right career track, besting Ivy Leaguers on the professional fast track, and making a good life with a wife and daughter of his own. His conviction rate is still outstanding, his future looks bright with only the smallest of blotches where finding time for his family is concerned. When he goes to witness the execution of the home invader convicted of the first-degree murder of Sheltons wife and child, something goes awry. A telling clue leads them to the other guy, the one with the lesser sentence but greater guilt. From there, its a short step to Shelton, who, far from running from the law, invites it in, lets it take him away, and then proceeds to play the system for reasons that are far more subtle than merely getting away with murder. His favorite plaything is Rice, the man he blames for ducking out on a trial all those years ago. His favorite gambit, making bad things happen to people in Rices orbit while he, Shelton, is locked away in solitary confinement.
The issues are interesting. A system that is flawed and that is staffed by people who are driven to succeed, but not necessarily passionate about justice. The look on Butlers face as Rice explains to Shelton the necessity of a plea bargain says it all: stricken, helpless, and so far beyond grief that tears no longer flow sums it up nicely, particularly because Shelton is not weak, physically, socially, or financially. Later, when havoc is being wrought, Butler gives Shelton an overweening confidence that needs no swagger to the walk, no leering at his confounded and increasingly nervous potential victims, that is equally strong. Foxx is saddled with a role that requires little beyond looking confused, but has the mitigating circumstance of looking confused while wearing very finely tailored suits. The lack makes the through-story of the personal grudge match going on between the two men less compelling that is should have been. Its Butlers film. He plays the audience the way Shelton plays Rice, mercurial, oddly sympathetic, and never cold, yet always calculating, asking for deals with a wide-eyed innocence, and demanding not a shorter sentence, or yard privileges, but deluxe bedding for his prison bunk, and ritzy catered meals served in his cell.
LAW ABIDING CITIZENs catch phrase is you cant fight fate, but its real message is delivered late in the film as two frazzled law enforcement types look at a locked door and say, in a more profane fashion, forget civil rights. Its a distinction worth noting as the slippery slope becomes just a little more slippery for the unwary.
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