The first 30 minutes of Law Abiding Citizen contain lengthy and brutal examples of two of my least favorite of any kind of film scene – the tied and bound man forced to watch the rape/murder of his family, and the gruesome torture/killing scene (the entire former 2/3 of Hostel, for example). This is generally referred to as torture porn and, despite being an avid horror fan, I have absolutely no patience for it. Law Abiding Citizen opens with graphic examples of both of these kinds of scenes, but the fact that it soon afterwards goes in a very different direction allows it to be unpredictable. In a lesser revenge vehicle (last year’s Max Payne, with Mark Wahlberg, or Denzel Washington’s horribly misguided Man On Fire, for example), we get the a similar kind of set-up and then your standard, take-the-law-into-your-own-hands manhunt.
Law Abiding Citizen begins with Clyde Shelton’s (Gerard Butler) wife and daughter being killed before his eyes, and then through standard American legal practice, one of the killers is set free in exchange for his testimony against the other one. This is a plot that resembles countless other revenge movies – from Seagal’s Out For Justice to classics like Shaft and Death Wish - but what sets Law Abiding Citizen apart is that Clyde determines to go not just after the killer who was set free, but the entire legal system, a revenge strategy in which the people working in law are just pawns in the way of his “Biblical” retribution. It’s like a militant version of the moody anti-death-penalty film The Life of David Gale (which I strongly recommend, by the way), starring Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet. It makes a powerful statement about the American legal system, but there are also plenty of explosions.
It’s hard to say much about a movie like this without giving too much away, but trust me when I tell you that the action is hardcore, the story is intelligent and well-written, and the movie always keeps you guessing. Gerard Butler gives one of the most intense performances of his career, and Jamie Foxx is remarkably convincing as the hotshot attorney who becomes Shelton’s primary target in his increasingly all-encompassing and sociopathic vengeance. Viola Davis is underused as the city’s mayor, who makes the preposterous decision of putting the city under military law in order to “keep the peace,” but she is such a powerful presence that she effortelessly dominates every scene she’s in.
My only complaint about the movie is that, despite how entertaining the process of Shelton’s retribution is, the violence in the beginning of the movie is given to us in such a brutal and graphic way just to serve as an excuse for Clyde to go completely off the deep end. 
There is a point in the movie, for example, where a televised news broadcaster mentions that “This is the first time in U.S. history when government officials have been systematically murdered.” It’s cool on an action movie level, because he’s doing all of this while already in custody, but there will come a time pretty early on when you start losing sympathy for him if you take the movie too seriously.
That seems like it might dull some of the movie’s real-life relevance, although it might be a certain other revelation about Clyde’s remarkable past that really causes the movie to move over into the revenge fantasy realm for you. But even so, it’s a taut thriller with lots of action and explosions, and a valuable message buried in there somewhere.
The Bean Meter
