Justice system promotional information promises a fare trial, a considerate hearing, a chance at due process. Who has faith in the American justice system? Or any justice system for that matter? Legal equality seems to all work the same way throughout the world. The film taps into the core fear, and highlights how the rules of justice work for some, and not for most. Though revenge killing is wrong, Law Abiding Citizen illustrates the “lack of good†in most “justice†systems, and focuses on the harmful disconnect that can numb professionals who deal with criminal minds for a living. And while you know in your heart you should be cheering for the cops, you cheer for Clyde as he thinks of more creative, surprising and gruesome methods to kill those who have failed him in his quest for justice. You‘ll shed no tears for the bad guys, and feel great conflict when Shelton‘s revenge extends to the innocent. But Shelton is a brilliant foe, and attacks his criminal enemies using creative methods which usually involve torture or explosives. Jamie Foxx is Nick Rice, the hungry prosecutor who is leading the manhunt for Shelton, a victim now turned revenge murderer. But when a plea deal was made that set the criminals free, Shelton decided to take the reins of justice into his own hands, by killing those responsible for the letting the convicts get away with murder. Left for dead after witnessing thugs assault and murder his wife and child, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) sought justice via the court system.
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A film that shines a glaring spotlight on blaring inequality, and unfairness found within America‘s justice system, and one man‘s quest to seek evenhandedness at all costs. Law Abiding Citizen is the ultimate “get even†film. Gerard Butler fans will delight in his role as an everyman who was failed by the American legal system. Law Abiding Citizen, now out on DVD, is arguably one of the best vigilante justice films on the market. Rated: Rated R for strong bloody brutal violence and torture, a scene of rape, and pervasive language. The jury doesn’t buy it.Starring: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Viola Davis One might argue for the defence that this is meant to be provocatively subversive, with the ‘good guys’ becoming indistinguishable from the bad. Foxx’s Nick seems merely peeved that his own hypocrisy and superiority are being challenged, while Butler’s Clyde acts like he has rabies. The film lurches from one massacre set-piece to another, the manner of each death telegraphed with clumsy glee before it happens. Director Gray is a money-maker (Friday et al), but taste isn’t his hallmark.
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What ensues would just be silly if the cat-and-mouse game weren’t so vicious, a series of indiscriminate slaughters when Clyde has flipped from betrayed victim to maniac on a senseless mission. He’s like the Count Of Monte Cristo if Edmond Dantès had mad IT skills and a degree in engineering. Ten years pass, which seems an arbitrary time lapse - until it emerges it would have taken at least that long for inventor Clyde to have amassed a fortune, accrued hitman expertise and constructed a lair only a Bond villain could love, packed with surveillance equipment, explosives, gadgets and clothes racks for 101 disguises. And he gets even more when the lesser of two evils is condemned to death while the devil “co-operates” with the prosecution and gets a pass. After a horror-movie opening sequence of a home invasion, in which Butler’s ordinary, decent guy Clyde is stabbed and bound, helpless while his wife and little girl are at the mercy of a rapist murderer and burglar sidekick (and is inexplicably left alive to identify his tormentors), he has all our sympathy.
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His hotshot ADA, Nick, is arrogant, detached and no great shakes as a husband and father, either.
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No sooner has Jamie Foxx demonstrated commitment to his art with The Soloist than he takes complete leave of his senses to play an unbelievable character utterly unlikable from start to finish. But this is the kind of film that leaves you so disappointed in humanity, the planet would be better left to the cockroaches.ĭeath Wish vigilantism goes too far when you no longer grasp who you are supposed to be rooting for. They pander to lust for retribution, and get away with murder by appearing to offset wrong with right. Revenge thrillers never appeal to our better natures.