Law Abiding Citizen (Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx) : Movie Review
January 22, 2010 by Sean Lynch
Filed under Movie Reviews, Movies
It’s been a long time since I’ve wound myself up and prepared to give a movie a good old fashioned slamming, but then again, it’s been a long time since movie-loving audiences have been subjected to a flick as ball-lickingly bad as Law Abiding Citizen.
This paint-by-numbers thriller (read: Saw meets Saw 2 minus the “enjoyable” bits) follows Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) as an upstanding family man whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion. When the killers are caught, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a hotshot young Philadelphia prosecutor, is assigned to the case.
Over his objections, Nick is forced by his boss to offer one of the suspects a light sentence in exchange for testifying against his accomplice. Fast forward ten years and the man who got away with murder turns up very, very dead and Clyde Shelton coolly admits his guilt.
Then he issues a warning to Nick : “Either fix the flawed justice system that failed his family, or key players in the trial will die”.
Cue mind games and gore….
Law Abiding Shit-izen... Citizen
WHAT’S THE BUZZ
While Law Abiding Citizen offers up an almost fool-proof set up and enough twists and turns to deliver a decent popcorn thriller – a barrage of stupidity, phoned in performances, mixed messages and morals, and after-school-special level dialogue overwhelms this poor man’s Hannibal-Lector-sequel-disguised-as-a-Vigilante-flick and shoots the movie into a league of it’s own….
The biggest problem here is Jamie Foxx. Here’s a guy that literally lucked his way onto the A-List courtesy of Ray, in a “Kanye West Sized Arrogance Works” era, and has since decided he deserves to be there – to be considered as one of the “great African American actors of his generation”.
The sad fact is, he doesn’t deserve to be there (Denzel Washington worked for years on quality flicks before be rewarded for his efforts… whereas Foxx… well, I hardly think we can say that Booty Call was the “hard yards” can we?) - and it shows!
Every moment Foxx is on screen as “Young Hotshot Lawyer” (who, besides Channel Seven’s tennis commentators even uses the phrase “hot shot” these days?) seems so out of place, so forced and cringeworthingly bad. It actually makes you want to set fire to the screen “Inglorious Basterds : Operation Kino” style.
Foxx’s opening scenes at “Law School” are out-and-out laughable, with Foxx spurting out lines like they were intended for a “Lawyering And You : An Educational Supplement” high school instructional video. His arrogance shines through (and not in that “Will Smith is arrogant… but Goddam is he cheeky and charming” sort of way either) and in doing so, defacates on any chance Law Abiding Citizen has of working as a film (serious, silly or otherwise).
It’s bad… just… really…. really… bad.
Gerard Butler does his best and (despite having the second most unconvincing American accent after Sam Worthington in Avatar) gives Law Abiding Citizen some drive and tension as a crazed father on a warpath.
However, the major problem here is that Law Abiding Citizen isn’t sure what it wants to be : Stupid but Fun “Death Race meets Hostel” vigilante flick (which is a great genre, even when they fall into the “So Bad They Are Good” zone), or an upstanding “Primal Fear meets Silence Of The Lambs” courtroom thriller.
I’m inclined to believe had Butler taken the reigns and steered Law Abiding Citzen towards being the Commando inspired popcorn thrill-ride that it occasionally hints at being then we might actually have had a decent “fun but dodgy” flick on our hands.
As it stand, Law Abiding Citizen isn’t “So Bad It’s Good”… it’s just “So Bad”.
WATCH OUT FOR
The aforementioned opening scene in which Jamie Foxx’s “Hot Shot Lawyer” character makes a name for himself at Law School almost comes off looking like a Saturday Night Live piss-take of a John Grisham movie.
It is a cracker of a scene for all the wrong reasons!
WATCH OUT FOR | RATING : 1.5 / 5
