Something was lost in translation in taking Law Abiding Citizen from script concept to film. It wants to be a subversive film, taking the Hollywood thriller you expect it to be, turning it on it’s head and chopping off it’s limbs. What it ends up being however, is the Hollywood thriller that you expect it to be. It’s reminiscent of director F Gary Gray’s previous work, the 2003 Italian Job remake, taking an interesting concept and wastes it through poor pacing and too many missed opportunities for action.
I think Shawshank wins the prison-drama comparison.
The film revolves around Clyde Shelton (Butler) who sees his wife and child brutally murdered in the first minute of the film. His prosecuting lawyer, Nick Rice (Foxx), makes a deal with the defendant lawyers, allowing on of the two criminal to go free. He claims that “some justice is better than no justice at all” but Shelton disagrees. What Rice doesn’t know is that Shelton is a very clever and very vengeful man. Taking on an antihero role, Shelton sets about killing everybody who has wronged him, the justice department, the killers, “the whole broken system”.
Shelton plots his murders in a similar fashion to Jigsaw from the Saw films, using his mechanical background to create deadly machines and gadgets, continuing to kill while behind bars. His plans lack the depth and ingenuity of Jigsaw’s however and therefore fail to match the tension or mystery created in those sequences. The series of murders are held together by dialogue and performances that, although not brilliant, are more than passable.
The film overall though, just feels like a series of missed opportunities. The action could be smarter, the jokes could be funnier, the characters could be more twisted. It feels like great idea that has been diluted too much in the production process, unsure if he wanted to make a dark thriller or an over the top action flick, Gary Grey has gone somewhere inbetween. I kept drawing comparisons while watching the film, between Shelton and Heath Ledger’s Joker. Both have disturbing yet somewhat likeable qualities, both are attempting to bring “the system” down but while Shelton promises, “It’s going to be biblical” it is the Joker who really pulls out all of the stops. It’s kind of ironic that while Shelton is in an 18 rated movie, the Joker manages a far more disturbing performance in a 12.
Law Abiding Citizen could have been a great film but a distinct lack of direction and meandering plot hurt it a lot.
Rating: 
