Law Abiding Citizen, WTF?
Have you been watching Law Abiding Citizen on TNT? I had already seen the movie before – a little after it came out in 2009, but watching it all over again on TNT just made me remember how silly and weird this movie was. Clyde Shelton (Butler) witnesses the murders of his wife and daughter at the hands of Clarence Darby (Stolte). Prosecutor Nick Rice (Foxx), having little faith in the strength of Clyde’s eye-witness testimony, makes a deal with Darby giving him only about 5yrs in prison, while the accomplice, Ames (Stewart) gets the death penalty. 10yrs later, Ames is killed slowly and painfully in a botched lethal injection, and Darby is dismembered into 25pieces – starting Clyde’s mass murder revenge on the Justice Legal System. Now… after those first 2kills is where the movie makes some poor decisions…
1. Jamie Foxx is the hero. This is the first major fail of the movie. It’s not that I don’t like Foxx, but I really don’t like his character, Nick Price. Maybe it was how the character was written, or how Foxx chose to portray him, but he’s not likable. He starts out as a prosecutor more interested in his success rate than in the deaths of an innocent woman and child. 10yrs later he’s a prosecutor who neglects his family and has a “little too close” relationship with his supposed-mentee. When it comes down to choosing between Nick and Clyde, I’m inclined to go with Clyde. Yea, he turns out to be a crazy (genius) murderer, but his vengeance almost seems just.
2. Fighting fire with … books. Yes, that’s what the duel between the main characters is like. Clyde is a crazy-awesome agent who has a knack for meticulously killing people, and Nick is kind of just a douche-bag prosecutor. Nick only has law books to look through, and he kinda fumbles about trying to figure this mad man out. He fails horribly, but somehow I’m supposed to believe that ultimately he’s gonna kick ass and take names..?
3. STUPID PREMISE. Simple as that. Do the writers of this movie actually expect me to believe that a man – who not only murders and rapes a woman, but also kills a kid in front of the father – can simply get away with it? Where is the public uproar and protest? This is not the kind of case that can just quietly be dealt away like that, and I am not buying it.
Ultimately this movie just pisses me off. The coolest thing about this movie is Gerard Butler. His character is damn calculating and crazy. The execution of all his plans are crazy awesome, and I found myself rooting for the bad guy. Watch the movie for the crazy kills, and that one cool cinematic scene of the bad guy’s death – yes, it really is that cool looking.