Father seeks crazed justice in smart 'Citizen'
Take Charles Bronson's vigilante architect from Michael Winner's semi-classic "Death Wish" and mix him with Tobin Bell's insanely creative sociopath Jigsaw from the "Saw" movies, you'd roughly have the anti-hero of F. Gary Gray's conscience-slapping, MENSA-powered thriller "Law Abiding Citizen."
Actually, "Law Abiding Citizen" is just as much of a tragedy as a conventional thriller. The two men butting legal and moral heads in this crime drama are neither all heroes nor all villains, but flawed fathers wrestling with their consciences.
In the case of the very flawed Clyde Shelton, played by Mr. Beefcake himself, Gerard Butler, his conscience loses big time.
In a nail-biting prologue, two thugs invade Shelton's home. They stab him, kill his wife and little girl.
When the killers are arrested and enter the legal system, hotshot Assistant D.A. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), anxious to preserve his impressive 97 percent conviction rate, cuts a deal with Shelton's assailant, Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte), to finger his accomplice, Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart), for the fatal attacks.
Shelton can't believe the man who killed his wife and daughter will be free in a few short years.
"This is just how the justice system works," Rice explains. Then he goes home to his pregnant wife (Regina Hall) and embarks on the family life destroyed for Shelton.
Ten years pass.
Rice's baby, Denise (Emerald-Angel Young), is a preteen cellist now ignored by her workaholic daddy who never attends her recitals.
Ames, finally sentenced to die for killing Shelton's family, suffers a horrible death on the lethal injection gurney when someone substitutes the wrong chemicals. Soon afterward, someone chops Darby into 26 pieces with various shop tools, and we know it's Shelton, who has flipped out and become an avenging psycho.
Or has he?
Shelton more or less confesses to the killings, and gets locked up, but that's just the start of a bizarre campaign of murders against people in the justice system who failed to protect the innocent and punish the offenders. And Shelton appears to be manipulating the systematic extermination of people on his hit list: Darby's attorney, the judge, members of the district attorney's staff and even the mayor (Viola Davis).
Rice's assistant tells him the obvious news: "I think he's saving you for last!"
The great joy of watching "Law Abiding Citizen" rests in the outrageous ways that Shelton outmaneuvers and out-thinks everyone around him, and manages to knock off his targets with expert timing and precision skill while in solitary confinement.
About three-fourths through the movie, Rice and his boss, the D.A. (Bruce McGill), discover through their own version of Deep Throat that - big surprise - Shelton worked for the government by ingeniously knocking off undesirables. (His necktie that chokes its wearer to death was brilliant!)
Chicago's F. Gary Gray replaced original director Frank Darabont on this thriller, which skates along on a greased track with no-nonsense performances by Foxx and Butler to anchor the more incredible plot twists and wince-inducing, overwritten pieces of dialogue. ("If he wants to play games," Colm Meaney's police detective says to Rice, "then we can play games, too!")
"Law Abiding Citizen" minces no scenes about which dad - Rice or Shelton - has the moral high ground. Its penultimate scene is literally a ticket into hell for one of them.
Yes, it's a little blunt and showy, but then nothing in this cagey cat-and-mouse thriller remotely oozes subtlety.
"Law Abiding Citizen"
Rating: 3 stars
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Viola Davis
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Other: An Overture Films release. Rated R for language, violence. 108 minutes