Law Abiding Citizen (2009) review

(7/10)

Like "The Lovely Bones", this is another one of my guilty pleasures. I can't make myslef hate this movie.

PLOT:Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is a normal guy with a family of three including his wife and daughter. One night, he hears a knock at the door and answers it to find two men dressed in black and armed with knives barging in. They kill his wife and daughter, stealing a few items and nearly killing him. During the case, his DA, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) makes a deal with the murderers, putting one to ten years and death and letting the other go free. Clyde doesn't like this and begins to hold a grudge. Ten years later, people who were involved in that case start to get murdered one by one cleverly at the mercy of Clyde because he didn't get his vengeance. Now Nick must try and figure out how to stop him and keep the city safe. It's an outlandish plot executed thrillingly with a few exceptions.



ACTING:The acting is decent. It's not the best I've seen by far. Jamie Foxx did a pretty good job. I didn't think Butler did that good of a job; I couldn't truly believe him or fear him. There really couldn't be any shiners besides Foxx because they're let down by an absurd script.

SCORE:The score doesn't really matter; it's just mood-fitting action score with a few cello themes and some inserted songs.

EFFECTS:The only effects there really were included blood and fire, but they were done pretty well. They looked more real than most horror movies do these days.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie isn't all that bad. It's thrilling, surprising, clever at times, and almost scary, but that's not to deter from it's true problems. The movie doesn't only have some flaky acting and a let-down script, but at times in the plot twists and dialogue it comes off as outlandish and absurd, like it was never even possible. It's like a teenage boy wrote this movie as a fantasy of an action movie, yet that' may be why I like it. I can't help but feel on the edge of my seat when I watch this. It may be a little illogical, but it does its job to keep me enthralled. It may be near mindless, but it thrills.

OVERALL,a good action movie with an outlandish and thrilling plot, decent acting by the main actors and flaky by others, mood-fitting score, real-looking effects, and the ability to keep me on the edge, but it has a let-down script and can be illogical at times.