Law Abiding Citizen

I have to be perfectly honest, the only thing that really got me into the movie theater for this was the director. F. Gary Gray makes thrillers that have a bit of an edge most of the time. He crafted The Negotiator, which is one of my favorite actor vs. actor thriller. Maybe that should not be enough to get me into a theater, but it made me think this movie had to be better than its totally generic trailer complete with completely generic dialog. It had to be better than that. Of course, the biggest downside to it going in was Gerard Butler. He is an actor who is capable of a sense of humor. he is charming and likable, except when he is in action movies, then he is far too serious. He needs that Jason Statham ability to not take all the ridiculousness seriously. He needs to lighten up.

The first two minutes of viewing this movie were hindered by a blurry screen and no sound, but from what I could gather, two men break into a house to rob it and end up killing the wife and daughter of Clyde Shelton(Butler) while he watches all tied up. The case is given to hot shot, up and comer D.A Nick Rice(Jamie Foxx) Rice does not like to lose, so if he does not have a slam dunk, he will take a plea. In this case, he gets one man to testify against the other so one killer gets the death penalty and the other gets only 3 years. Ten years later, Rice is the lead D.A and he goes to watch the killer get his lethal injection, but something goes wrong. Then the other killer end sup with his body chopped into pieces and Clyde is obviously the culprit. Once arrested, Clyde warns Rice that he is just getting started. he wants justice and he is not afraid to bring the whole city down on itself to make it happen. Judges die, cops die and a city goes into martial law without having any idea how Clyde is able to manipulate all of this from prison, even if he did used to be a spy or something even cooler and more impossible to believe than a spy.

While not nearly as thrilling as The Negotiator, Law Abiding Citizen is certainly a better movie than its trailer. There are aspects completely left out of the trailer that are intriguing, like Clyde, after he is arrested says he will make his confession and give other details in exchange for silly things like food from certain restaurant, or a better prison bed. These demands show Butler with a little bit of a twisted sense of humor in Clyde and it really opens up an interesting power dynamic between Butler and Foxx. Foxx is considered the more distinguished actor, with an Oscar to his credit, but he spends most of this movie, at the mercy of King Leonidas. This dynamic reminded me of what Foxx had with Tom Cruise in Collateral. I like it when a powerful actor has to play at the mercy of another, that is why I love these Actor Vs. Actor thrillers. They often offer this dynamic up for me.

Both men are up to the challenge. Butler does a good job of switching from totally calm and cool to being totally insane, which is called for when a character is a father and a killer. Foxx odes excellent work as a sort of weak minded man who goes to great lengths to have an untarnished record but then realizes he has to do better for his city and his family. There are some supporting players like Leslie Bibb or Gregory Itzen that do not really contribute too much, except as pawns or foils, but the picture moves along a brisk pace because of Butler and Foxx. The scenes between these two men drive the picture because they account for exposition, the driving action and ultimately the climax. if the movie were to fail, it would be because of these two men, but it doesn't fail. In fact, it is quite a bit more entertaining than I expected.

There is a ticking bomb aspect to the story, where the good guys have to find things within a specific time or things go boom or people die, so that certainly helps the pacing. Gray is a good at moving a movie along. He is a facilitator of tempo and while that does not seem all that impressive for a director, a thriller like this depends on on the tempo to be pushed forward. There is a great scene that is essentially a group of people staring at a clock waiting for 6am and the way it is shot and edited, the scene feels a lot more exciting than it really is. Then you throw in a scene of incredibly intimate violence, a scene where a bunch of car explode and a seriously awesome scene where a motorized little car thing has machine guns attached to it, you get the perfect amount of action scenes to balance all of the talking scenes.

There is a nice reveal in the third act that again makes the movie a little more than a by the numbers movie and while the movie cannot live up to the trite dialog threat of "It is going to be biblical", but what movie can back up that kind of claim, except a Roland Emmerich disaster movie. Law Abiding Citizen offers enough thrills and tense moments to be better than the average thriller and it was nice to see Gerard Butler loosen up a bit in an action movie, but I still think Jason Statham would have done it better. If you watch Dexter you will see similarities and perhaps, there will be a moment when you are on Clyde's side. It seems almost everyone was at some point. Maybe that is what is most interesting about the movie, but most of that stuff is missing from any of the footage they show in the trailers. In any case, I had a good time watching this movie and found myself curious as to how it was all going to end.

Final Grade: B-