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Canwest News Service
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
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The best revenge movies feature a familiar face and an unforgettable line. Think Liam Neeson in Taken telling the kidnappers: "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." Think Mel Gibson in Ransom, bellowing: "Give me back my son!" Think Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger in– well, just about anything.
Now think Gerard Butler. But forget about him screaming "Spar-tans!" in 300. Most of his best lines in Law Abiding Citizen are stolen from other characters or from real life; (19th-century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, for instance, gets a rare shout-out in an action movie). Butler’s strongest statement, "Lessons not learned in blood are soon forgotten," sounds like something Jefferson might have knocked off on an off-day.
The hunky Scottish actor, seen this year locking lips in The Ugly Truth and locking and loading in Gamer, plays mild-mannered everyman Clyde Shelton. Or at least he’s mild-mannered for the film’s first 15 seconds, during which he’s clubbed on the head, knifed in the chest and forced to watch as his wife and daughter are murdered.
In his next scene, he learns from attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) that the killer is going free as part of a plea bargain that will give the accomplice the death penalty. Clyde is miffed, a fact made clear when Nick spots him far across a crowded courtyard, standing motionless and staring hard in his direction. (In movies, the miffed, despite their relative stillness, can be seen for miles.)
Cut to 10 years later. Nick, now a father himself, attends the execution, but something goes wrong with the lethal-injection machine, and the bad guy dies writhing in agony. A little later, the pardoned killer is kidnapped and given a deadly surgery that could only have been performed by Clyde or a fan of Saw. Clyde doesn’t seem to mind that the police know it was him, and obediently surrenders.
Open-and-shut case? Not quite. Locked in a maximum security prison, interrogated in a big metal cage that looks to be from Beyond Thunderdome, Clyde begins a game of cat and mouse with his captors. He starts by demanding a comfy bed, in exchange for which he’ll provide a signed confession. (Somehow, despite overwhelming evidence, the murder charge won’t stick without one.) In a lunatic move that pushes the film into the realm of fantasy, the district attorney agrees.
Then, in spite of being moved to solitary, Clyde starts a campaign of terror against those in the legal system who have denied him justice. Judges are retired from the bench — permanently; paralegals are paralyzed and worse; lawyers are shot up and then blown to pieces in a graveyard (which at least saves time and transportation costs).
Audiences, meanwhile, will be alternately puzzled and bored to death by the machinations of Butler’s mad-as-hell title character. But there’s really no great mystery to be solved here, other than how he manages to orchestrate crime from a cell. (And can it really be that hard? Sally Tomato was doing it a half-century ago in Breakfast at Tiffany’s; ditto Noel Coward’s character in The Italian Job.)
Speaking of The Italian Job, director F. Gary Gray helmed the 2003 remake but has done little of note since, including this one. He and writer Kurt Wimmer make it clear in the early going that Clyde is an expert tinker, tailor, soldier and spy. So apparently a well-rounded skill set –plus a sizable personal fortune and a 10-year head start –are all one needs to orchestrate a reign of terror and vengeance.
It works on a smaller scale as well. With $20 in your pocket and a few minutes to peruse the cinema marquee, you might decide to teach this film a lesson and spend your time and money on something else. Just be sure to come up with a suitably piquant one-line reason for doing so. Rating 1½
cknight@nationalpost.com
