Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Written by: Kurt Wimmer
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Leslie Bibb, Colm Meaney, Viola Davis, Bruce McGill
Rating: [3/5]
The justice system, while flawed, walks a fine balance of rectifying wrongs and holding perpetrators accountable in a sustainable manner. Hiccups will inevitably happen, and some individuals will feel hard done by those flaws it contains. Law Abiding Citizen presents a tale of a man who does not accept those faults and takes matters into his own hands not only to seek revenge but also to make his grand statement about a system he deems broken.
Following the horrific murder of his wife and daughter, Clyde (Gerard Butler) is in shock when he hears from the prosecutor on the case, Nick (Jamie Foxx), that one of the individuals involved will receive a plea deal for third-degree murder. With this much lighter sentence, Clyde deems this system unacceptable. Ten years later, he enacts his plan for revenge not only on the perpetrators but also on everyone involved in the case.
Depicted as the villain of this piece, Clyde has a justified anger burning through him. He had to witness things no person ever should in the way his family was brutalized. One would think that it should be a slam dunk case for the perpetrators to get swift justice to the fullest extent of the law. However, technicalities and evidence beyond a reasonable doubt set the standard for what prosecutors must rely on to win a case. Clyde sees how in the process of trying to create this perfect formula, individuals can slip through unscathed, like the man who murdered his wife and child. This justified anger begins with direct revenge on that man, but he does not stop there, and that’s where things begin to truly go crazy.
After Clyde gets locked up, he begins to toy with Nick and the entire justice system in a way where you just have to choose to believe the possibility of everything happening. This includes continuing to execute individuals involved in the case from his jail cell in a manner that’s incredibly confounding. The film does offer up an explanation for it, but this whole scheme becomes too far-fetched to live in any semblance of reality. Whether that damages the viewing experience depends on how much you can just toss out logic and enjoy this story. I firmly sit in that camp.
Even with all of the ridiculous continual murders transpiring, Law Abiding Citizen has a real fervor to it along with this mean-spirited approach. With there being ten years from the inciting incident and the present day, Clyde evidently had plenty of time to plan out this entire sequence of events leading to moment after moment that leaves the entire Philadelphia justice system on its heels. It therefore becomes a battle of the wills between Clyde and Nick as the latter tries to keep up with the former, but it continually proves to be a challenge.
One of the more intriguing tenets this film wrestles with through its characters is about the miscarriage of justice and if the laws we have on the books truly serve the victims of crimes. Clyde surely sees it that way, where he decides to take matters into his own hands and seek revenge for his family. The table then gets turned to Nick, the upholder of the law, and how he tries to continue to follow the book in the right way to stop Clyde’s actions but eventually gets to a place where he needs to color outside of the lines to get things done. Interestingly enough, the film posits that while Clyde goes too far in his actions and just how far up he goes on the chain for vengeance, he’s ultimately right given what Nick has to do to stop the mayhem.
A bit far-fetched in moments but certainly an entertaining and intriguing watch, Law Abiding Citizen delivers on much of what it wants to deliver. It seeks to explore this larger idea of the legality of our actions and at what point the law gets in the way of what is right while also delivering some brutal revenge at the hands of Clyde. Everyone involved puts in a fine shift in the office, with Gerard Butler standing out amongst them all and even a surprise appearance of Viola Davis as the mayor of Philadelphia, who has had enough of this nonsense.
