Even the film itself seems to be exhausted by the violence human beings are constantly inflicting on each other. At the big climax, when yet another gigantic explosion occurs, director Gray drains the sound out of the movie, so the bang arrives with a melancholic whoosh.

Instead, the film flings that bloodlust back in your face.

Soon, you just want the thing to end so you can go home.Īt least Law Abiding Citizen doesn’t stoke the viewer’s bloodlust. Even the gifted Foxx is unable to bring much life to his role. The filmmakers also tip their hand as to whose side they’re really on, and you start to realize just how thinly written all the characters are. Unfortunately, the film runs into the dreaded Third Act Troubles: Never all that plausible to begin with, the plot becomes completely untethered from reality. The movie is less effective when Nick starts playing Sherlock Holmes to figure out how Clyde is able to keep killing people in highly ingenious manner after he’s sitting in a prison cell. When Nick asks, “You think your wife and daughter would feel good about you killing in their name?” Clyde shoots back, “My wife and daughter can’t feel anything: They’re dead.” Tell me that exchange doesn’t make you feel like tuning in to Rush Limbaugh, at least for a little while. With his own family now in Shelton’s crosshairs, Nick finds himself in a desperate race against time facing a deadly adversary who seems always to be one step ahead.Law Abiding Citizen is best while making you contemplate those questions. Only Nick can stop the killing, and to do so he must outwit this brilliant sociopath in a harrowing contest of wills in which even the smallest misstep means death. Philadelphia is gripped with fear as Shelton’s high-profile targets are slain one after another and the authorities are powerless to halt his reign of terror. Soon Shelton follows through on his threats, orchestrating from his jail cell a string of spectacularly diabolical assassinations that can be neither predicted nor prevented. Then he issues a warning to Nick: Either fix the flawed justice system that failed his family, or key players in the trial will die. The man who got away with murder is found dead and Clyde Shelton coolly admits his guilt. Over his objections, Nick is forced by his boss to offer one of the suspects a light sentence in exchange for testifying against his accomplice. When the killers are caught, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a hotshot young Philadelphia prosecutor, is assigned to the case. Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is an upstanding family man whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion.

Law abiding citizen movie