An Overture Films release presented with the Film Department of a Warp Film production in association with the Evil Twins. Produced by Lucas Foster, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Mark Gill, Kurt Wimmer, Robert Katz. Executive producers, Neil Sacker, Michael Goguen. Co-producers, Jeff Waxman, Ian Watermeier. Directed by F. Gary Gray. Screenplay, Kurt Wimmer.
Nick Rice - Jamie Foxx Clyde Shelton - Gerard Butler Jonas Cantrell - Bruce McGill Det. Dunnigan - Colm Meaney Sarah Lowell - Leslie Bibb Kelly Rice - Regina Hall Det. Garza - Michael Irby
Revenge is a dish best served with car bombs and chainsaws in "Law Abiding Citizen," a twisty hybrid of serial-killer suspenser, legal thriller and prison drama that, in between grisly setpieces, attempts to raise significant questions about the failures of the criminal justice system. Yet far more than any tacked-on moral dilemmas, it's Gerard Butler's juicy performance as a grieving father turned mass-murdering psycho genius that powers this self-serious pulp entertainment. Overture release packs enough potent shocks to lure sizable thrill-seeking crowds to multiplexes (the owners of which are hopefully smart enough to hyphenate the title on the marquee).
Wasting no time, the pic plunges the viewer immediately into a horrific yet unprotracted domestic bloodbath. Two men break into the home of Philadelphia family man Clyde Shelton (Butler), who's forced to watch helplessly as they murder his wife and young daughter. Exactly how and why Clyde survives the senseless assault is left unexamined by Kurt Wimmer's screenplay, which quickly abandons the scene of the crime in favor of a longer stay in legal chambers, where matters of guilt and innocence aren't quite so cut-and-dried.
Unable to convict both killers due to insufficient evidence, prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a careerist accustomed to compromise, arranges a deal with one of the perps, Darby (Christian Stolte), so he can send the other to death row. But that's not good enough for Clyde, who waits 10 long years for vengeance -- and well worth the wait it is, as he abducts Darby and lays him out on an operating table apparently on loan from the "Saw" prop department.
True torture-porn aficionados will be disappointed, as editor Tariq Anwar cuts away right before blade meets flesh -- a move that feels a tad, well, gutless under the circumstances. But elsewhere, "Citizen" proves startlingly graphic, even by R-rated standards; as Clyde's killing spree continues, now targeting the key players in the decade-old murder case, one starts watching every scene in nervous anticipation that heads or SUVs might explode without warning.
Even after he's apprehended and locked up, Clyde remains 10 steps ahead of everyone else, including Nick, who tries in vain to stop this homicidal mastermind. Like a younger, hunkier Hannibal Lecter, Clyde plays nasty mind games, makes ludicrous demands and is in every way determined to shake the foundations of so-called law and order.
Just as Nick is outwitted again and again by Clyde, so top-billed Foxx is overmatched here by Butler -- who, even if he can't quite make sense of an impossible character (a loving husband and father warped by unspeakable trauma into a one-man WMD), clearly relishes the challenge. Whether he's savoring a steak (delivered in exchange for info about a victim's whereabouts) or, in the pic's most galvanizing moment, telling off a judge, Butler gives the picture a pulse and keeps it throbbing steadily through the first hour, which shamelessly feeds the viewer's own appetite for revenge.
Butler makes such a charismatic villain/antihero that you never quite stop rooting for him, which is a credit to the performance but also a dramatic handicap -- one that serves to show how disposable the good guys are, even those played by such sterling character vets as Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney and Viola Davis.
Director F. Gary Gray (making a smooth return to filmmaking four years after "Be Cool") lends the pic some of the procedural flair and attention to detail that distinguished his souped-up 2003 remake of "The Italian Job." But "Citizen" is a more bloated affair, and it winds up feeling overwritten yet underexplained, foregoing plausible revelations in favor of gusty debate about the ethical challenges of practicing and upholding the law. Suspense deflates even as the body count escalates.
Using a steely color palette to emphasize its moral gray zones, the pic benefits significantly from its Philly locations, which include City Hall and Holmesburg Prison.
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.Credits Release Date: Oct 16, 2009; Rated: R; Length: 108 Minutes; Genre: Drama; With: Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx
C-By Owen Gleiberman
Remember Charles Bronson in Death Wish? Law Abiding Citizen offers a taste of no-mercy vigilante family-man justice 3.0. Ten years after his wife and daughter were slaughtered in front of him, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) kidnaps one of the perpetrators, straps him down to a torture table, and saws off his limbs (and other things). Then he sends a video of the atrocity to Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), the slick, out-for-himself Philadelphia prosecutor who cut too soft a deal with the killer.
Clyde is one of those movie madmen who turns vengeance into a ''game.'' He's Bronson crossed with the didactic sadist of the Saw films. Under arrest, he somehow devises a way to further his rampage from within the walls of a maximum-security prison — and that's a pretty big somehow, especially when you learn how he's doing it. Clyde is meant to be nuts, but too often it's Law Abiding Citizen that checks rationality at the door. Butler and Foxx engage in sub–Silence of the Lambs word duels, but during these scenes what I mostly noticed is how quickly I've grown tired of Butler's mush-mouthed bravura, and also how much I hope that Foxx, who looks bored, holds his slumming down to this one film. C–
Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
Film Reviews Law Abiding Citizen -- Film Review By Kirk Honeycutt, October 15, 2009 03:00 ET
Cast and Crew Executive Producer: Neil Sacker Executive Producer: Michael Goguen Producer: Gerard Butler Producer: Alan Siegel Producer: Kurt Wimmer Producer: Mark Gill Producer: Robert Katz Co-producer: Jeff Waxman Co-producer: Ian Watermeier Director: F. Gary Gray Screen Writer: Kurt Wimmer Line Producer: Jeff Waxman Unit Prod. Manager: Mark Kamine First Assistant Director: Michael Lerman Prod. Designer: Alex Hajdu Costume Designer: Jeffrey Kurland Music: Brian Tyler Casting director: Joseph Middleton Casting director: Deanna Brigidi-Stewart
Cast: Gerard Butler (Clyde Shelton), Jamie Foxx (Nick Rice), Leslie Bibb (Sarah Lowell), Colm Meaney (Detective Dunnigan), Viola Davis (Mayor), Bruce McGill (Jonas Cantrell), Regina Hall (Kelly Rice), Michael Irby (Detective Garza)
Bottom Line: An implausible thriller with a few horror elements in the guise of social criticism.
In "Law Abiding Citizen," a sociopath goes on a rampage, killing major officials in Philadelphia and holding the entire city hostage. He essentially is a character elevated out of the ranks of horror films who instead of killing teenagers reacting to hormones or other socio-biological imperatives destroys adults reacting to career dictates. As the title insists, this is a law-abiding citizen who is irate with a justice "system" that allowed one of the killers of his wife and daughter to get off with a light sentence.
Ah ha, does a social message lurk within the context of rapes, dismemberment, bomb explosions and political assassinations? No, of course not. That's just the cover for filmmakers F. Gary Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer to indulge in calculated genre mischief that mixes horror elements with a suspense thriller.
The script does create sufficient tension and intrigue to hook viewers along with a photogenic, hardworking cast, so "Citizen" should stir some mid-October boxoffice action.
Gerard Butler (who also is a producer) plays this supposedly average guy who witnesses the slaughter of his wife and daughter by home-invasion robbers. Curiously, this pair seems more interested in being outrageously sadistic than in grabbing anything worth fencing, but that's so an audience will understand these really are bad people who deserve to die.
Jamie Foxx plays a Philly assistant D.A. without much hard evidence who plea bargains an agreement with one sleazeball to testify against the other to win at least a death verdict against one and a murder plea from the other.
The audience is not allowed to understand much about the legal case -- the evidence or the pretrial rulings. Nor does one know much about either key character, the attorney who agrees to the deal or the father and husband who feels that justice is not served.
But because the audience does witness selected parts of the murder scene, they will understand that the greater villain eventually will walk free. Tellingly, no judge, lawyer nor anyone else -- not even the husband who blacked out -- has this God-like perspective.
Ten years roll by, and Butler's revenge-minded victim is ready for action. Oh, by the way, Butler is not an average guy, after all. He actually is a secret weapon -- no, better than that, he is a "Brain," whom U.S. spy agencies employ to kill people anywhere around the globe in a ghostlike fashion. Don't you wonder why someone like this isn't going after Osama Bin Laden?
Well, he's going after anybody connected with the decade-old case, which more or less means anybody who happened to be living in Philly at the time. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen everything you need to know about the murderous havoc this man rains down on the city. No attempt is made to make either combatant credible.
Foxx's D.A. -- he is sworn in after the previous D.A. gets riddled with bullets -- goes along with SWAT teams as they hunt bad guys. And Butler's nut job couldn't care less about his dead wife and child. He's having too much fun killing people.
The film is smoothly produced, though Brian Tyler's score is too much like an excitable cheerleader. Jonathan Sela's photography and Alex Hajdu's design sustain a noirish Philadelphia that works well with the criminal mayhem.
Opens: Friday, Oct. 16 (Overture Films)
Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
