My plan was originally to see the Epic 2012... but at the insistance of Jumpy I changed my mind at the last minute and saw Law Abiding Citizen instead. WHY??!!
Law Abiding Citizen starts out with Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) getting the shit kicked out of him and then being forced to witness the murder of his family. An undetermined amount of time later he goes to Nick Rice (Jamie Fox), a hot-shot attorney that only cares about his 96% conviction rate. Instead of doing the right thing and risk losing his conviction rate, Nick strikes a deal with the main criminal. The main one (Darby) will testify against his partner, who will be sent to death row, and Darby will get a shortened sentence in exchange for his testimony. When he gets this news Clyde is furious and begs Nick not to go thru with the deal, but is shortly informed that the deal has already been made. Wronged by the legal system, Clyde formulates a plan that he sets into motion 10 years later.
Law Abiding Ciotizen has been advertised as a Revenge flick, but it actually is nothing of the sort. We, the audience, find out around 45 minutes into the film that Clyde's plan has more to do with exposing the faults in the legal system than with Revenge, though that does play a small part in it.
The beginning of the film starts out pretty slow and boring, slowly building itself up till, for 5 minutes, the film is exactly what it needs to be. As soon as those 5 minutes end the film quickly does a nosedive and crashes into the ground. For the middle of the film (which makes up most of the movie) the film is at rock bottom or is nose-diving. During this portion the film has lost it's direction and sense of meaning. It's forgotten what it had originally wanted to achieve and what had made the film work and becomes a ridiculous, stupid, boring thing to watch. At this point I was teetering on the edge of a one star rating...until the final 5 minutes come around and bring the film back to what it was like before. But it's not enough unfortunately, The middle has already driven the film into the ground...the ending just barely brings it up a little.
There is nothing more frustrating than a film tht has lost it's purpose and direction...that's exactly what Law Abiding Citizen is.
Gerard Butler puts in a career changing performance as the insane with grief Clyde. The filmmakers are given a great character but don't know what to do with him. He starts out as a normal Joe, then turns into an avenging Anti-hero with a plan, and then transforms into a mad man that has lost all sense of reason... the man Clyde is at the beginning of the film and at the end are 2 very different dudes. The filmmakers do everything in their power to stop you from rooting for Clyde. They turn him into the more-or-less "Villain" of the film. Since he is the only really likeable character in the film (He's certainly alot more interesting than the bland and CLEARLY AN ASSHOLE Nick, whom we spend most of the film with...hmmm, maybe thats why the film ended up kinda stinking), by turning him into the "bad guy" that takes away our only investment in the film, thus we end up not really giving a fuck about who lives and who dies.
Law Abiding Citizen is a film that had higher aspirations than most films do and it gets bonus points for that, but it doesn't know how to go about achieving those high aspirations.It kind of has a clue,but not totally. Hey, It's better to aim high and fall, then to aim low and succeed.
Overall L.A.C was film that aspired to be more than it ever could be, almost like a child that dreams of being Spiderman.It starts out focused but quickly loses its sense of direction and purpose, forgetting what it had set out to do in the first place. Slip it some focus pills and maybe it would have been better. Don't bother wasting your money on this one, instead wait for it on DVD.
2.5 stars- High Rental
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