LAW ABIDING CITIZEN (USA 2009) ***
Directed by F. Gary Gray

Vengeance is sweet.  The main plot of LAW ABIDING CITIZEN concerns a husband Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) weaving an intricate web of revenge on all the people involved in letting the criminals who butchered his family go suffer-free. 

But it is also the judicial system that Shelton wants to take down.  Thus when a judge (Annie Corley) gets her brains blown away right after she boasts that she can do anything she wants because she is judge, one cannot help but cheer guiltily in ones seat. 

But hence lies one underlying problem in the otherwise occasionally brilliant script by Kurt Wimmer (EQUILIBRIUM).  This involves a shift in focus of the role of the character of Shelton from vigilante hero to conscienceless villain.  During the last half hour of the film, the audience is 100 % on Shelton’s side and it is not difficult to see why.  Gray’s film is so effective in the first half that once he has gotten one rooting for this poor soul hero who has lost his entire family, nothing can literally be done to alter a change in mind.  For all that its worth, Gray’s film is still exciting to watch from start to end, despite a bit of credibility in Shelton’s inventive abilities.

The story takes a turn when D.A. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) accepts a plea bargain for the 2 killers.  Dissatisfied, Shelton undertakes initially his plan to do away with the two, in slow painful deaths while abiding in the eyes of the law.  Shelton’s plan continues to no end to include, the killer’s attorney, the judge in the case and soon everyone else.

Director Gray knows how to keep the audience’s adrenaline flowing, just as Shelton injects adrenaline into the veins of one killer to enable him to feel the pain.  He cross cuts Rice’s daughter’s recital with one killer’s electrocution for more shocking contrasting effect.  He has choice lines like the one Clyde’s former counterpart describing Clyde to Nick: “If Clyde wants you dead, you are dead!” Gray also uses wordless scenes to make a point, as in the one Shelton just looks away when asked the question what; “What can we do?”

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN has an African American slant – most noticeable at a scene where all the characters present are black.  The mayor of Philadelphia where the film is set is not only portrayed by an African American but by a female (Oscar nominee for DOUBT Viola Davis, quite good in her role).  History has currently Philadelphia’s third black mayor running currently in office.  It is admirable that the filmmakers have taken bolder steps in portraying cross cultural differences in this film – though it might be argued that this will likely bring more races to see the movie.  Interesting to note too that the villain is white and the hero is black.

Director F. Gary Gray has proven his mettle in delivering ok thrillers like THE ITALIAN JOB and A MAN APART.  LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is his most ambitious and complicated work.  Given the script’s inherent problems, Gray still manages to keep the audience’s attention from start to finish.