Law Abiding Citizen

Why did I bother watching this? Since the world cup started this is the first LoveFilm DVD I have watched - I shouldn't have done. I remember when the trailer for this came out at the cinema, it looked fairly exciting at the time what with Jamie Foxx frowning into the camera and Gerard Butler threatening to "... kill everyone!", hopes were high for an action-packed yet thoughtful drama that hinted at the difficultly of establishing a strong judiciary within a free democracy. Kind of like Batman Begins, but with fewer gadgets.

'Law Abiding Citizen' feels like it was written by three teams of people, each of whom had different ideas about the film and none of whom had any idea about the existence of the other. The first group wanted to make a action blockbuster with explosions and Gerard Butler shouting, the second group want to write an essay on the dark hidden agendas of the US legal systems, the third group are trying to make Saw 8 (I say 'Saw 8', who knows which version of that over bloated franchise they'll be up to by the time you read this article?). At various times in the film one of the groups seem to have total control, never are they all working together. I get the impression that the film was the originally the idea of a single writer, but that funding was a problem and as Hollywood execs got their mitts on it they insisted upon a series of non-negotiable changes that ballsed the whole thing up.

I guess a quick rundown of the plot wouldn't go completely amiss. Gerard Bulter is a 'Law Abiding Citizen' whose wife and daughter are killed by intruders into his home. One of the intruders testifies against the other, meaning that one gets the death penalty while the other gets 5 years in jail. Bulter's character (Shelton) decides this isn't good enough, and so spends 10 years planning the deaths of the murderers and those involved in the prosecution of the murderers - Jamie Foxx.

The film's problems start with its initial premise, that of Shelton as the 'Law Abiding Citizen'. In order to explain his near godlike ability to booby trap and kill at will, the background to his character is that he is some kind of ex-secret service black-ops assassin, the best of the best at killing people. He hardly sounds like a paragon for social justice to me, especially not when he decides it's his job to murder people he doesn't approve of. The problems continue when Shelton kills his cellmate (no motive at all for that - not a particularly 'Law Abiding' thing to do), ridicules and murders a judge (her crime - not locking him up without any evidence) and posts a tape of him sawing a man to pieces to a 10-year-old girl. Are we supposed to be questioning which of the characters is really the bad guy in all this? Are we supposed to be musing over what could possibly send this 'Law Abiding Citizen' over the edge? No. This is no man of peace, no man of law and certainly not a man with any right to issue or pontificate upon justice. No viewer with any sense can have sympathy for this reckless criminal mastermind.

Our second group of writers (see above) get a bit of a look in when Shelton appears in court as a criminal for the first time. He mocks a judge who is about to set bail for him, since he has 'confessed' (although he has already pointed out that his 'confession' is no more than the ravings of a mad man and as such useless) he insists he must be locked up and that the justice system is a farce for not thinking so. This is almost a good point, but it only lasts as long as it takes Shelton to set another booby trap.

'Law Abiding Citizen' is a film that with a bit of work could have been ok. In the end it's a mash of genres and plots that don't work.