N23's Movie Review: "Law Abiding Citizen" (Spoilers)
I saw "Law Abiding Citizen" Saturday, and I absolutely hated it. I cannot in good conscience recommend that anybody see this dog; if you've seen the trailer, you've already seen the most powerful parts anyway.
Gerard Butler stars as Clyde, a suburban husband, father and tinkerer first seen on the last day of his family's life. A home invasion robbery by two men ends with the senseless murder of Clyde's wife and small daughter, made more terrifying because we see it the same way Clyde does as he loses consciousness after being stabbed: a jumble of images suggesting further, unseen horrors.
The burglars are later apprehended, and here Clyde runs afoul of a court system based more on patronage and self-serving tactics by lawyers (represented by Jamie Foxx as Nick, a glib, smarmy assistant D.A.) than on dispensing actual justice. Nick decides to enter into a plea bargain with the older of the two, who did the actual killing. This devastates Clyde; however, Nick doesn't want to jeopardize his high conviction rate with testimony (Clyde's) that might not stand up in court.
Fast-forward ten years: Nick has advanced in his job and is now the father of a young daughter for whom he never has any time. Clyde has apparently spent his time quite wisely in the interim as well, becoming an extremely wealthy inventor (remember that tinkering?) and high-powered, secret government contractor whose specialty is devising ingenious, untraceable, yet oddly Rube Goldbergian ways to kill people. Oh, and digging an elaborate system of Habitrail tunnels under Philadelphia. No, I'm not kidding.
However, that all comes out later. First, Clyde dispatches with relish the two men responsible for his family's deaths: the younger one by switching the "painless" chemicals in his lethal injection kit for something with a little more kick, and the older killer by kidnapping him and dismembering him with bone saws and tin snips in an abandoned warehouse and recording the whole thing on a DVD which he sends to Nick's house.
And here's where it gets weird. Because Clyde doesn't stop there. He's got a taste for blood now and mows down others connected with the case: burying the defense lawyer alive, rigging the ball-busting female judge's cellphone to shoot her in the head, blowing up a parking lot's worth of cars with Nick's entire support staff inside, and picking off Nick's boss and mentor at the funeral with a tiny gun-toting robot. Yes, really. And Clyde somehow manages to do it all from the little cell in solitary where he was sent after killing his large, clueless cellmate with a steak bone. Now it's up to Nick to discover Clyde's secret and stop him from destroying the city's infrastructure.
Okay, it's a ridiculous premise. But it conceals something far more sinister. Because "Law Abiding Citizen" depicts Clyde as a lone white man out to avenge his loss on the corrupt blacks and women who have betrayed the principles of justice and due process on which this country was built. Nick and the female mayor, whom Clyde seeks to blow up along with the city's other brass, are black. The women Clyde kills are the judge and Nick's loyal junior lawyer, Sarah. Neither is shown to be a wife or a mother, so they are fair game; in fact, Sarah talks to Nick of regret over lost opportunities for marriage and family shortly before Clyde blows her up. Nick's wife, content to remain in her proper place in the home (and who works nonthreateningly as a teacher), is spared.
In one scene late in the movie, Clyde name-drops Carl von Clausewitz, a military strategist whose works have long been studied and appreciated by leaders, most famously Adolf Hitler. It's a disturbing detail that really stood out to me, since it wasn't necessary to the plot in the slightest. The scene in which Nick is sworn in as district attorney after his white boss's death at a secret late-night meeting with the mayor, with the mayor's black male aide holding the Bible, suddenly seemed less like a minor plot point and more like the realization of Clyde's, and perhaps the audience's, fears.
"Law Abiding Citizen" is ugly and unremittingly bleak and defies the viewer to find any character with whom to identify. It's no surprise that a movie like this would come out in this insane year of town halls and tea parties and birthers, and frighteningly, it seems to have connected with some people. I was shocked at the film's misogyny and even more so when the crowd in the nearly-full theater, most of whom were young men, cheered loudly at Clyde's harassing the female judge by accusing her of "taking it up the ass." Needless to say, these same guys were ecstatic when the judge meets her messy end, whooping and hollering for a full minute or so. I've lived some tough places and I've seen some crazy things, but I was actually afraid walking out to my car alone that night. Thanks, guys. Really.
Gerard Butler stars as Clyde, a suburban husband, father and tinkerer first seen on the last day of his family's life. A home invasion robbery by two men ends with the senseless murder of Clyde's wife and small daughter, made more terrifying because we see it the same way Clyde does as he loses consciousness after being stabbed: a jumble of images suggesting further, unseen horrors.
The burglars are later apprehended, and here Clyde runs afoul of a court system based more on patronage and self-serving tactics by lawyers (represented by Jamie Foxx as Nick, a glib, smarmy assistant D.A.) than on dispensing actual justice. Nick decides to enter into a plea bargain with the older of the two, who did the actual killing. This devastates Clyde; however, Nick doesn't want to jeopardize his high conviction rate with testimony (Clyde's) that might not stand up in court.
Fast-forward ten years: Nick has advanced in his job and is now the father of a young daughter for whom he never has any time. Clyde has apparently spent his time quite wisely in the interim as well, becoming an extremely wealthy inventor (remember that tinkering?) and high-powered, secret government contractor whose specialty is devising ingenious, untraceable, yet oddly Rube Goldbergian ways to kill people. Oh, and digging an elaborate system of Habitrail tunnels under Philadelphia. No, I'm not kidding.
However, that all comes out later. First, Clyde dispatches with relish the two men responsible for his family's deaths: the younger one by switching the "painless" chemicals in his lethal injection kit for something with a little more kick, and the older killer by kidnapping him and dismembering him with bone saws and tin snips in an abandoned warehouse and recording the whole thing on a DVD which he sends to Nick's house.
And here's where it gets weird. Because Clyde doesn't stop there. He's got a taste for blood now and mows down others connected with the case: burying the defense lawyer alive, rigging the ball-busting female judge's cellphone to shoot her in the head, blowing up a parking lot's worth of cars with Nick's entire support staff inside, and picking off Nick's boss and mentor at the funeral with a tiny gun-toting robot. Yes, really. And Clyde somehow manages to do it all from the little cell in solitary where he was sent after killing his large, clueless cellmate with a steak bone. Now it's up to Nick to discover Clyde's secret and stop him from destroying the city's infrastructure.
Okay, it's a ridiculous premise. But it conceals something far more sinister. Because "Law Abiding Citizen" depicts Clyde as a lone white man out to avenge his loss on the corrupt blacks and women who have betrayed the principles of justice and due process on which this country was built. Nick and the female mayor, whom Clyde seeks to blow up along with the city's other brass, are black. The women Clyde kills are the judge and Nick's loyal junior lawyer, Sarah. Neither is shown to be a wife or a mother, so they are fair game; in fact, Sarah talks to Nick of regret over lost opportunities for marriage and family shortly before Clyde blows her up. Nick's wife, content to remain in her proper place in the home (and who works nonthreateningly as a teacher), is spared.
In one scene late in the movie, Clyde name-drops Carl von Clausewitz, a military strategist whose works have long been studied and appreciated by leaders, most famously Adolf Hitler. It's a disturbing detail that really stood out to me, since it wasn't necessary to the plot in the slightest. The scene in which Nick is sworn in as district attorney after his white boss's death at a secret late-night meeting with the mayor, with the mayor's black male aide holding the Bible, suddenly seemed less like a minor plot point and more like the realization of Clyde's, and perhaps the audience's, fears.
"Law Abiding Citizen" is ugly and unremittingly bleak and defies the viewer to find any character with whom to identify. It's no surprise that a movie like this would come out in this insane year of town halls and tea parties and birthers, and frighteningly, it seems to have connected with some people. I was shocked at the film's misogyny and even more so when the crowd in the nearly-full theater, most of whom were young men, cheered loudly at Clyde's harassing the female judge by accusing her of "taking it up the ass." Needless to say, these same guys were ecstatic when the judge meets her messy end, whooping and hollering for a full minute or so. I've lived some tough places and I've seen some crazy things, but I was actually afraid walking out to my car alone that night. Thanks, guys. Really.