Verdict:
It appears that the executives wanted to recreate the success of movies with Hannibal Lector, the calm and all-knowing criminal, who sits behind bars but is in control of the situation. However, if your expectation is to see another Silence of the Lambs, you will be severely disappointed.
Law Abiding Citizen is a concept that speaks to the primal feeling of distrust and hatred within some of us towards the big cold government man. Gerard Butler plays one angry mastermind whom we get to see take his anger out on everybody. You could do much with this concept, but you do need some complexity to tickle the viewer’s brain throughout such a film, and you have to be careful not to mess up all the little details. Sadly, this one got messed up.
While the story may have a few unpredictable turns, being unpredictable is not a good thing if the twists and turns do not lead to anything satisfying. The makers do not follow through with the evil genius concept. Neither do they go for with a brilliant-detective concept. The movie ends up being somewhere in the middle of nowhere and middling is what this movie is, while the ending ends up being a total letdown.
Jamie Foxx is an ambitious Academy Award winning actor, but I’m having trouble separating him from his origins in the Jamie Foxx Show, where I absolutely hated his routine. It is entirely possible that this bias affected my opinion of him in this film, but I did not buy him as a smart district attorney, who never lost a case.
The talking doesn’t make things any better. Most of the dialogue between the two main characters, the district attorney and the angry Butler, could be taken away and it would make no difference whatsoever. The two are talking intensely, and you may for a while think that you do not understand whose point is more just and what that point even is, but do not worry, it’s not you, it’s the movie. If you don’t understand it, it’s because there is no clear point, moral or other – just English words said in a thrilled tone and then repeated at the next encounter between our two leads.
This is why, although the acting presented is ok, the characters seem a little dead, and they make the story a little dead, which in turn makes the movie a little dead. I remember Hannibal Lector, I remember Norman Bates, but I already forgot the name of the antagonist from this movie.
If the characters aren’t particularly interesting, then you tend to look for something else. So, what else is there? This is a thriller with not many special effects, so the action is not the centre piece. The thrills kind of work, even if due to the viewer’s confusion more than anything else. A curious result of the shallow main characters is that the rest of the cast gets more spotlight, which they take gracefully.
Law Abiding Citizen is not terrible – it’s bi-curious. It doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. In a way, the fact that you don’t know where it’s going, combined with a healthy dose of violence, keeps you on the edge of your seat for a while, as you’re waiting for an interesting payoff. However, the satisfying release never comes – the pretty silver bowl is empty.