Dual Review - Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen follows the unfortunate story of Clyde Shelton(Gerard Butler) after his wife and daughter are killed in a home invasion. The criminals who committed the crime were apprehended but the prosecuting attorney Nick Rice(Jamie Foxx) has cut a deal with one of them. In return for testifying against his cohort one of the criminals only receives three years in prison, while his partner gets sent to death row. The story then picks up ten years later as people who had anything to do with the trial, whether they be the criminals involved or public officials, begin dying mysteriously. We learn early on that Clyde Shelton is behind these heinous acts, the only thing that keeps this from being an open and shut case is the fact that while Clyde is in prison, people are still being murdered. It it Nick's job to find out how and why the body count keeps rising.

Jared's Take: Overall Law Abiding Citizen is one of the best movies that I have seen in the past few months. It is clearly head and shoulders above Butler's last movie Gamer. The story is well told and the pacing is just right. The plot is easy to understand and follow. You are never confused or lost. The acting is all around good and you do find yourself growing attached to each character. Hitting on that I want to comment on how I began feeling sorry for Clyde in the beginning, but by the end, I was ready for him to pay for the crimes he had committed. I was really surprised how this character transformed.

What I didn't like about Law Abiding Citizen is that the ending felt just a little bit too rushed. I have some issues about the time frame for the last couple of minutes of the movie and the teleportation like movements for a couple of characters. Other that that though I have no real complaints about the movie itself.

Allan's Take: What makes Law Abiding Citizen a really good movie is it's a clever commentary on the American justice system and the American Dream itself. Also throuhout the story I could never really figure how the targeted officials were being killed, even though you knew who was behind it all. Like Jared, I thought it was interesting to see the transformation of the Shelton. His change in character poses questions to the audience as to what makes up a 'good guy' and what makes up a 'bad guy'.

I didn't really have any problems with the movie except for Butler getting naked. I didn't need to see that.


Jared' Rating: It's a good movie that tries to point out the problems with our current justice system. Even if you aren't a law abiding citizen, I dare you to

GO NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Allan's Rating: This is a very important movie in my opinion. I could see it being used in a sociology class somewhere. And it's very enteraining as well...

GO NOW!!!!!!!!!!!