User reviews

I never rooted for Jamie Fox's character, I wanted Butler to kill everyone. The director failed to make me see Butler as a villain. If that was the intention, it didn't mesh. Fun movie though.

This reminds me of the start of a great relationship, starts out wonderful, continues to grow, and then out of nowhere, BAM, it ends and you are left wondering what just happened.

As so many other reviewers have stated, it starts out with great suspense, originality, and creativity, and somewhere in the last 20 minutes, you are left wondering, did it really just end that way? Ouch! I found myself incredibly disappointed.

We all love Jaime Foxx's funny side, but really wanted to see something else happen to him in this film. I get the idea of the end, that he learned his lesson so to speak, but it was still really weak for what it could have been.

However, I'll still give it an 8 as it kept me quite intrigued throughout...so hard to find these days in a quality film.

At no point do I ever side with the so called "protagonist" played by Jamie Fox. This movie does not convey the "hero" to have any values that you would want to root for. Other than that glaring problem, Gerard Butler does a great job playing the vigilante

I am just not sure which is which.

I am trying to avoid spoilers here, because it is a definite film you must check out because it is a great new take on the prison based thriller genre, which provides 90 odd minutes of great entertainment with lots of twists and turns to keep the story fresh.

My main criticism is that the story seems to twist and turn so much it gets itself into a nasty tangle. The base of any thriller for an audience, is to want the protagonist to prosper at the downfall of the antagonist, but at the end, i was unsure which of one of the two mains, Nick Rice (foxx) or Clyde Shelton (butler) i should be 'cheering' for.

Each Character has their fair amount of being the good guy, but both were more of the bad guy, a very confusing aspect to a thriller.

Never-the-less, there are some brilliant performances and a very entertaining fresh story kept me glued to the screen for the entirety of the movie.

****/5

This is a movie that's extremely fun to watch in the theaters because you get to hear and see everyone's reaction to each of his killings. The best one had people actually saying loudly "wow" and "oh my god!".

What drew me to the movie was the fact that the hero wasn't going around killing people with his bare hands or face to face. He was doing it with his mind, with careful planning, and deft precision. That was something refreshing to see. I can totally relate to his feelings of anger over the flaws in the justice system and his desire to take matters into his own hands - to make things right.

The ending was disappointing but the rest of the film was not and I liked it overall.

A great movie about what should happen more often to the corrupt Legalists. Make the Pigs (Cop & Lawyer) pay in pain and bloodshed. Of course all you modern day spineless punks who believe in the System will think I'm crazy. Hopefully some will lose someone in an instance like this or be unjustly accused by the corruption you love.

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN has all the trademarks of a great film. A non-linear plot, plenty to say about the state of the world today, some tough performances and explosive sequences. Best of all, it blurs the line between good and evil so that you're never quite sure who you're supposed to root for, which guy's the villain and which guy's the hero.

Gerard Butler stars as the ordinary man whose family is killed in a burglary gone wrong. Butler then undergoes a startling transformation as he sets up a campaign of revenge against all those who failed to bring the killers to justice. The film goes from there, starting off dark and becoming increasingly more bleak as the running time goes on.

It has plenty of incident to keep it running along, and some great scenes: Butler's manipulation of the prison regulations, for instance, or the way he manages to wage his vendetta from the INTERIOR of his prison cell. But, along the way, the film's sense of realism diminishes until we end up with a completely ludicrous event at the end which is designed to bring closure. It's not on par with, say, EAGLE EYE for suspension of disbelief, but it's getting there. It's just a shame, as with some tighter writing this could have been a truly great movie. It turns out to be an intriguing oddity, instead.

Butler is good as the 'bad guy', effectively channelling some of that Leonidas rage. But, as usual, Jamie Foxx is completely out of his depth as the lawyer. He's a vacuum of talent, an empty space in the middle of the movie surrounded by other, better, more seasoned performers. It's a shame, as the combination of rubbish actor and rubbish ending scupper this movie's best intentions.

A solid movie. It was not predictable. The actors were great in their roles except for a sub-par Leslie Bibb (TV actress with waning looks). After the first five minutes I thought I made my assumptions of what was going to happen but I was totally wrong.

Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx work perfect against each other. There are a few lulls in the movie towards the end but overall it was a real good movie.

Perhaps the message of this movie can somehow persuade real change in our legal practices. It is worth seeing. The way the film is shot and the sound effects make this an intense movie.

Clyde Shelton's ( Gerard Butler ) wife gets murdered in the beginning of the movie and justice doesn't prevail because one of the killers is only sentenced for 10 years. Clyde is angry as hell and will make sure the people responsible for the horrible trial of the killers will all suffer and die. So basically you got yourself a revenge movie here. Clyde is killing them and isn't even hiding it, he admits it. Nick Rice ( Jamie Foxx ) is the DA on the case and needs to find out what the hell is going on. Now the fun part is that Clyde is performing the kills from within his prison cell, he even has to sit out in solitary and is still killing people, now how cool is that.

I totally dig the idea of a highly intelligent man orchestrating kills on specific times and places from his prison cell, all planned ahead of time. If you're a smart ass while watching this movie you'll find out there are a lot of plot holes so I recommend you not to think it all through. Heads up for Gerard Butler, this guy is making some mayor progress on this one after some sh!tty movies last year. I think we'll be seeing more of King Leonidas in the future so hurray to that. On the opposite, Jamie Foxx is on a decline. Ray was an excellent movie but after that it's just bad. As Nick Rice the DA he is just one stone face mofo, no emotion no nothing. Jamie and the ending of the movie are the only 2 things that suck. The movie is just handing out it's surprises like candy, like spoiling your daughter's birthday present a week before her actual birthday. Watch it with a time progress bar and stop the movie before the last 15 minutes, then close your eyes and make up your own ending and I promise you it will be way better then the awful piece of movie you just skipped...

This movie really takes the cake. It's focused on a father (Clyde) who gets beaten and his wife and daughter are killed by 2 crooks. However the crooks' punishment was dimmed down because of a deal made by the lawyers(Jamie Fox). 10 years later, Clyde decides to take out the entire corrupt justice system.

This movie really keeps you on the edge of your seat, and the main character Clyde really makes this movie something memorable and just extraordinary. You can compare Clyde to the Joker pretty much, but in my opinion 10 times better. Clyde devises sneaky and cunning ways by taking down his victims and the whole sense on whether he is the hero or villain also adds to the excitement. Jamie Fox also does a great job playing his character, a heroic yet corrupt lawyer.

There are a few scenes that will guaranteed make you laugh and a few scenes that will pretty much tell you that Clyde is just one kickbutt character, no questions about it. Every scene you will be wondering what will happen next, because you honestly won't know. The movie has a few twists and turns and will always keep you guessing. If you want to see something that is highly suspenseful, will keep you on the edge of your seat, and includes 2 very unique and questionable characters, then you must see this movie. Law Abiding Citizen will not disappoint.

Let's face it. Because a person is capable of pulling off the kinds of things done here, doesn't make the likelihood any greater. There is so much precision and luck involved in making things work that it would take a god pulling strings to allow these things to fall so easily into place. Even a silent partner is not going to do the job. I enjoyed the setup but the lengths gone through for revenge really pull it apart for me. The guy has so much power that he is completely in control. There would be a point in law enforcement where they would finally say, "Screw you!" The technology would have taken a fortune beyond imagination to work out. While I like the actors in this film, I can't recommend it's far fetched totality. Done in a more controlled and believable way, you have a stunner. It's just too much. And the ending is a real weakness.

This film is gory, but the gore is mostly suggested rather than shown. You can make up your own mind as to how gory you want it to be. Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) and Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) are excellent as "frenemies." They still sympathize with each other, in a way, as each teaches the other a lesson. Butler is excellent as the crushed father and husband who believes he must use his unique skills and talent to make an example of a justice system that has forgotten the victims. You sympathize with him even as he enacts his vicious lesson plan upon Foxx's coworkers. Foxx is an arrogant self-serving assistant district attorney who is only concerned with his conviction rate as he claws his way up the ladder in the justice system. He has forgotten the victims. But when he has a family of his own, he begins to see Clyde's point, yet he cannot give in to all of Clyde's demands to stop the carnage. Beautifully films in a noir tone with excellent timing on the stunts and effects. Law Abiding Citizen is an adrenaline-pumping experience. Bring your heart meds.

Almost everyone agrees. Law Abiding Citizen is a great movie but the ending sucks.

The problem is, with about 30 minutes to go, the movie wants us to stop cheering on Clyde (Gerry Butler) and suddenly start thinking of Nick (Jamie Foxx) as the hero. That's not going to work, the audience has just invested about 90 minutes of wanting Clyde to continue with his vengeance. Damn right too.

The plot should have continued to its logical conclusion. Clyde was trying to teach Nick a lesson, that the system was so broken that it could only be fixed by being destroyed first. Rather than the squeaky-Hollywood-ending-slop they served up, here's what should have happened...

In the solitary confinement cell at the end, Jamie Foxx's character Nick should have taken the cell-phone from Clyde then remote-detonated the bomb at city hall, blowing up the mayor, the brass, the whole rotten system, then gone off to watch his daughter's cello recital.

Now, that ending would have been really insane, but it would have taken the movie to its logical conclusion. Nick's conversion would have been complete. As an ending, it would be right up there with Jimmy Cagney at the end of White Heat, 'Made it Ma, top of the world!' Morally dubious, yes, but it would have given us a bona-fide classic. It would be rating 9.8 here on IMDb rather than this insipid seven-point-bleh.

Oh, and the movie loses a point for Gerard Butler not using his own voice. Gerry is a Scot and has a fine Glasgow accent, he should use it.