***SPOILER ALERT***
Law Abiding Citizen is a crime thriller film starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler. I already knew the background of the movie having watched trailers and thought that it looked extremely promising. The film jumps straight into a scene of Clyde Shelton (Butler) witnessing his wife and daughter murdered in his own home. After finding out from the case prosecutor (Foxx), that one of the criminals will receive a light charge, and witnessing them shake hands in what he thinks is some sort of deal, Clyde feels betrayed and is out for revenge.
Clyde then goes on to change chemicals in the death row procedure for the accomplice, and then goes on to lure in and brutally murder Clarence Darby, the murderer. This leads to him being arrested and questioned, due to the fact it happened on a property he owns, and he promises a confession if he gets a proper bed in a cell. Here he murders his cell mate, and is then put in solitary confinement. We learn this is an important piece in the "twist" at the end of the movie.
On paper the plot sounds entertaining, with Clyde in prison, people who were involved in the case start dying, and the city gets shut down. Suspecting that someone on the outside is helping Clyde, they decide to keep him locked away whilst they try to find information and solve the case. This is where I have to hold myself back from turning this post into an outright attack on how far fetched this movie really is. Throw in some terrible acting from Jamie Foxx, who I found to be great in Collateral, but utterly **** in this, spells out "terrible film." However, I've come to expect this from films in recent years. Poor attempts at trying to make something original and failing with plot flaws are evident in this film, which is a shame because I was really hoping there would be a very good explanation to why people were dying whilst Clyde was locked away.
To cut a long story short, it turns out that Clyde dug a tunnel from a garage he owns located near the prison, into his cell, explaining how he managed to commit the murders all along. I don't particularly want to carry on writing about this movie, because mentioning other parts of the plot, such as the "masterplan" at the end for Clyde to plant a bomb in the city hall, makes me annoyed. He plants the bomb dressed as a janitor, for Jamie Foxx to simply walk out with and place in the prison cell at the end of the movie, killing Clyde in one of the most ridiculous endings I have ever seen.
This being said, there's one good thing that came out of my experience watching it; it was light hearted entertainment at the time, and started off with very promising opening scenes. If it wasn't for Foxx's poor performance and dreadful ending, it would be a decent film. Looking back on it however, I would feel disappointed if I paid to view this, and that's not a good sign whatsoever.
IMDB Score: 7.3 My Score: 5.4
Clyde then goes on to change chemicals in the death row procedure for the accomplice, and then goes on to lure in and brutally murder Clarence Darby, the murderer. This leads to him being arrested and questioned, due to the fact it happened on a property he owns, and he promises a confession if he gets a proper bed in a cell. Here he murders his cell mate, and is then put in solitary confinement. We learn this is an important piece in the "twist" at the end of the movie.
On paper the plot sounds entertaining, with Clyde in prison, people who were involved in the case start dying, and the city gets shut down. Suspecting that someone on the outside is helping Clyde, they decide to keep him locked away whilst they try to find information and solve the case. This is where I have to hold myself back from turning this post into an outright attack on how far fetched this movie really is. Throw in some terrible acting from Jamie Foxx, who I found to be great in Collateral, but utterly **** in this, spells out "terrible film." However, I've come to expect this from films in recent years. Poor attempts at trying to make something original and failing with plot flaws are evident in this film, which is a shame because I was really hoping there would be a very good explanation to why people were dying whilst Clyde was locked away.
To cut a long story short, it turns out that Clyde dug a tunnel from a garage he owns located near the prison, into his cell, explaining how he managed to commit the murders all along. I don't particularly want to carry on writing about this movie, because mentioning other parts of the plot, such as the "masterplan" at the end for Clyde to plant a bomb in the city hall, makes me annoyed. He plants the bomb dressed as a janitor, for Jamie Foxx to simply walk out with and place in the prison cell at the end of the movie, killing Clyde in one of the most ridiculous endings I have ever seen.
This being said, there's one good thing that came out of my experience watching it; it was light hearted entertainment at the time, and started off with very promising opening scenes. If it wasn't for Foxx's poor performance and dreadful ending, it would be a decent film. Looking back on it however, I would feel disappointed if I paid to view this, and that's not a good sign whatsoever.
IMDB Score: 7.3 My Score: 5.4
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