MOVIE REVIEW: Law Abiding Citizen

MOVIE REVIEW: Law Abiding Citizen

SCOTTISH beefcake Gerard Butler has had enough of being the housewife’s bit of rough.
The 300 star is desperate to show he can stretch his acting muscles just as much as his biceps with his latest film Law Abiding Citizen.
But despite being an enjoyable action thriller, the film falls disappointingly short of being the slick, polished suspense movie it wants to be and Butler plays the same cheeky, loveable rogue he starred as in recent rom-com duds such as The Ugly Truth and PS. I Love You.

Clyde Shelton (Butler) is an honest, upstanding family man and Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is an ambitious young prosecutor working for a safer Philadelphia.
When Clyde’s wife and young daughter are brutally murdered, Nick is assigned to the case.
On the verge of sentencing, Nick sensationally cuts a deal with one of the killers, sparing him from death row.

A decade later, the man who got away with murder is found dead.
Clyde coolly admits his guilt before issuing a warning to Nick - either fix the flawed justice system that failed his family or key players in the trial will pay the price.
Nick now finds himself in a desperate race against time as a series of elaborate assassinations target the ranks of the city’s criminal justice system.

Only he can stop the killings and to do so, he must outwit a brilliant adversary who always seems to be one step ahead.
The tension is kept cranked up high as one by one legal professionals fall like flies in unexpected, and unncessarily messy, ways.

All the blood soaked signs point to the imprisoned Clyde, but with our anti-hero locked in solitary confinement and no communication allowed with the outside world, any evidence suggesting his guilt remains fatally flawed.
The film undeniably has its fair share of thrills, but I couldn’t help feeling like Alice falling through the gaping great holes in the plot.

So many questions are either unanswered or underdeveloped. Why is Clyde such a master assassin? How did he manage to carry out the killings without being noticed?
By the end of the film we know nothing more about the vigilante prisoner than when it started, leaving you feeling numb and underwhelmed by the final silly twist in the tale.

The audience is expected to take too much for granted and some ludicrous philosophy about good guys turning psycho if they are pushed hard enough is far-fetched and frankly trite.
Oscar-winning Foxx holds his own but looks slightly uncomfortable as the flash lawyer, even bored, while Butler relishes getting his hands bloody and steals the best lines.
However, neither A-listers play to their full potential and what could have been an explosive stick of cinematic dynamite, ends up being a rather damp, soggy squib.