Despite it being an action-packed thriller, "Law Abiding Citizen" proved to be a disappointment. Image courtesy of amazon.com

“Law Abiding Citizen” stars Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler in a fast paced psychological thriller. From start to finish, the film keeps the viewer on the edge of his seat with all of its twists and turns.

“Law Abiding Citizen” opens with a scene of the normal Shelton family, which consists of Butler’s alter ego, Clyde Shelton, and his wife and young daughter. The movie begins to take a dramatic turn when the family become the victims of a violent home invasion. The invaders, Robert Ames and Clarence Darby, do not just rob the Shelton’s home, but attack and kill Clyde’s wife and daughter.

The entire movie revolves around the murder of Clyde’s family and Clyde’s subsequent search for justice., which started because he feels that Clarence is not justly punished. Clyde pleads with Foxx’s character Philadelphia District Attorney Nick Rice to not offer a the plea bargain to Darby, who agreed to testify against his partner Robert.Nick. However he refuses Clyde’s wish and goes through with the deal.

Through a dramatic series of events, Robert and Clarence are murdered, and Clyde becomes the main suspect in the murders. Clyde turns from being a victim to the victimizer, as he violently murders Robert during his execution. It becomes just one in the long line of grizzly murders that Clyde goes on to commit and one of the gory murder scenes contained in the film. Another of these scenes involves Clyde  killing his cell mate with the bone from a t-bone steak they had shared. These graphic murder scenes at times feel out of place and seem more like they belong in a horror film than in a movie that tries to make the viewer think about the fairness of the legal system, the movie’s central theme, which eventually gets lost amid the inventive murders and outlandish schemes that Clyde creates.

Many of the scenes in film seem unrelated, and after a while each scene feels like a replica of another with different details. The film unsuccessfully tries to tie its disjointed scenes together as part of Clyde’s master plan to get back at the justice system, which he thinks failed his family. However, his reasons for attacking the justice system ultimately get lost in translation.

“Law Abiding Citizen” is definitely not going to win any Oscars, but it is a good pick for viewers who want 109 minutes of almost utter confusion. “Law Abiding Citizen” was a movie with an identity problem. It felt like it did not know whether it wanted to be an action film, a horror movie, or political commentary, which distracted viewers from the the movie’s plot. The only part of the movie probably worth the admission price is the ending, which manages to wrap up the movie with an extremely outlandish and over the top ending.

This film received two out of five stars ★★