Law Abiding Citizen scores 2/5

Contrived, laughably over the top, and at times just plain stupid, 'Law Abiding Citizen' gussies itself up as a hard-hitting, thought-provoking stab at the American justice system, but in the end it's just another excuse to blow shit up, says Rob Peters.

It may have been conceived as a dig at the American justice system, but it doesn’t take long for 'Law Abiding Citizen' to lose touch with reality and consign itself to yet another in a long line of average thrillers, with a touch of torture porn right out of the 'Saw' franchise.

When engineer Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is stabbed in a home-invasion robbery and forced to watch his wife and daughter murdered, he is understandably distraught. When one of the thugs responsible gets off with a lighter sentence after brokering a deal with DA Nicholas Rice (Jamie Foxx), Shelton goes off the charts.

Again, quite understandable.

But 10 years later Shelton has cooked up the most insane revenge plot since Tobin Bell was typecast as Jigsaw in the 'Saw' series. The braniac engineer has managed to come up with the most intricate (impossible) payback ever.

While I can understand his need for vengeance, the way he goes about it makes little sense.

You see he's not just going nutso on the guys who killed his wife and daughter, he's not even stopping with the people responsible for getting one of them off, nope he's targeting anybody close to all of the above.

You get the feeling he would kill the pizza guy for dropping off an order at the courthouse.

That's not the only thing out of whack here. I mean Clyde has 10 years to think of the worst possible way to kill everybody even remotely involved in the case, but he fails to comprehend the moral implications of his actions. He's cold, calculating and ultimately nuts, and after 45 minutes of watching innocent people get slaughtered, you actually forget why he is even doing it… It becomes impossible to feel any sort of empathy for the character's plight.

What starts off as a critique of the American legal system descends into a revenge thriller, and before long it forgets about the original premise entirely. Instead 'Law Abiding Citizen' focuses on more blood, gore and blowing shit up.


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