F. Gary Gray, director of The Italian Job, once again displays his love for action, cool gadgets and the beauty of explosions in this year's Law Abiding Citizen, which stars Jamie Foxx (Collateral, Ray) and Gerard Butler (300, P.S. I Love You). Taking place in Philadelphia, the film delves right into the action as Clyde Shelton, a seemingly average Joe (Butler), is forced to watch the murders of his wife and daughter as he is tied up during a home robbery invasion. Clyde's attorney, Nick Rice (Foxx), fails to successfully convict both of the assassins even though he knows both are guilty: "It's not what you know but what you can prove in court," he says. The rest of the film takes place 10 years later and deals with a major scheme engineered by the angered Clyde as an attempt to prove the failure of the justice system by which the country operates.
While the film attacks problems that undoubtedly do exist within the court system, it fails to present the audience with a directed viewpoint regarding the issue. Clyde represents the opposition to the system as a result of its failure to convict his family's murderers, while Nick believes in the system and clearly uses it for his own personal gain. We first sympathize with Clyde, but by the end of the film, viewers learn more and more about him and wonder how he can possibly do some of the gruesome things he does merely to make a point.
It is similarly hard to sympathize with Nick, for he constantly ignores his own wife and daughter because of his obsession with work and the maintenance of a high conviction rate. He is an emotionally distant character most of the time and seems to represent his job instead of an actual person. At times, the audience is given glimpses of his hesitancy toward the righteousness of what he is doing, but this hesitancy is seen more through other characters - most notably his assistant Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb), who explicitly wonders if she is actually giving up so many hours of her life to do the right thing or just to make an extra buck.
Despite Law Abiding Citizen's failure to present a compelling argument regarding the failures or successes of the justice system, it is still by all means entertaining - especially on the big screen. Gray creates a beautiful motion picture in which he parallel edits a variety of images such as a daughter playing a cello and a man being put to death on death row, or Clyde welding pieces of metal together while his daughter strings beads to make a bracelet. The magnificence of explosion and the use of a variety of never-before-seen gadgets, which operate to enact a number of complex plans, are what make the film so entertaining. Although audiences may long for a hero, or just someone to like, they will definitely not be bored. More than likely, they will be somewhat vocal in their seats as they are hit with a combination of action-packed surprises and intellectually-driven plans to bring the whole system crashing down.
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