Law Abiding Citizen is a 2009 American thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray from a screenplay
written by Kurt Wimmer and stars Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler.
The film takes place in Philadelphia and tells the story of a man driven to commit multiple
murders while targeting not only his family's killer but also a corrupt criminal justice
system.
Law Abiding Citizen was released theatrically in North America on October 16, 2009.
The film was nominated for a Saturn Award as the Best ActionThriller Film of the year,
but lost to Inglourious Basterds, and the film also garnered NAACP Image Awards nominations
for both Jamie Foxx and F. Gary Gray.
Plot In a 1999 Philadelphia home invasion, Clarence
James Darby and his accomplice Rupert Ames kill the wife and daughter of Clyde Alexander
Shelton before his eyes.
Prosecutor Nick Rice is unable to use DNA hard evidence to securely convict both accused.
Unwilling to take a chance on lowering his high conviction rate, he makes a deal with
Darby, letting him plead guilty to a lesser charge and receive a reduced sentence in return
for testifying against Ames.
Ames is found guilty and is sentenced to death.
Darby is released after a few years.
Shelton feels betrayed by Rice's actions and by the justice system in general.
Ten years later, Ames's time on death row is up.
Unknown to the prosecutors and the witnesses, the cardiotoxic drug usually used in executions
has been replaced with an anticonvulsant, causing Ames to die an extremely painful death.
Evidence relating to tampering with the drug implicates Darby.
An anonymous caller alerts Darby as the police draw near, and directs him to a remote location.
Shelton, disguised as a cop, reveals himself as the caller and paralyzes Darby with puffer
fish venom.
He straps Darby to a table and slowly dismembers him as revenge for murdering his wife and
daughter, videorecording the gory proceedings.
When Darby's remains are found, circumstantial evidence tentatively ties his death to Shelton.
Despite knowing the evidence is weak, Shelton surrenders himself into police custody, where
he points out the flaws in Rice's case against him.
Shelton tells Rice he will give a full and real confession if Rice will get a couple
of things for him; the first is to get Shelton a new bed for his cell.
As he leaves the interrogation room, Rice receives a phone call from his wife, and learns
that Shelton had sent a copy of the snuff film of Darby's demise to his house, traumatizing
his daughter.
He initially refuses to bargain with Shelton in order to get a confession.
But District Attorney Jonas Cantrell orders Rice to make a deal, so Rice gets Shelton
a new bed.
In court, Shelton represents himself.
He successfully argues that he should be granted bail, then berates the judge for accepting
the "bullshit" legal precedents he himself cited and for being too eager to let madmen
and murderers back on the street.
The judge jails Shelton for contempt of court.
Shelton demands a porterhouse steak lunch be delivered to his cell by a specific time,
in return for telling where to find Darby's lawyer, who was reported missing three days
earlier.
Rice agrees, though the lunch is delayed by a few minutes due to the warden's pedantic
security measures.
Once he has his meal, Shelton provides a set of coordinates, where Rice and the others
find Darby's lawyer, buried alive but suffocated when his air supply ran out while Shelton's
lunch was being delayed.
Shelton invites his cellmate to join him in his steak meal, which turns out to be the
cellmate's last meal, as Shelton then stabs the cellmate in the neck using the steak's
bone, killing him.
Upon discovery of the murder, the warden moves Shelton into solitary confinement.
Cantrell arranges a meeting with a CIA contact and brings Rice.
They learn that Shelton has previously worked with the agency, creating devices to assassinate
people in imaginative ways, such as a necktie that kept getting tighter when it was tied,
thus strangling the victim.
Further, they are warned that Shelton is capable of killing anyone he wishes, no matter where
he is.
During a meeting with Rice and Cantrell, the judge is killed when she answers her cell
phone and it explodes.
Shelton demands Rice to drop all charges against him or more people will die.
A number of Rice's assistants are killed by car bombs, one of them Sarah Lowell.
As Rice and Cantrell leave the funeral of Lowell, Cantrell is killed by a weaponized
bomb disposal robot.
The mayor puts the city under lockdown and promotes Rice to acting District Attorney.
Rice learns that Shelton owns an auto garage next to the prison.
A tunnel from the garage leads to a cache of guns, disguises, and other equipment below
the solitary confinement cells, and secret entrances to each cell.
He and Police Detective Dunnigan realize Shelton wanted to be in solitary, allowing him to
easily leave the prison without detection and commit the murders.
Evidence in the tunnel points Rice to Shelton's next target, city hall, where the mayor is
holding an emergency meeting with city officials.
Rice and his men cannot find Shelton, but discover evidence pointing to a cell-phone-activated
suitcase bomb in the room directly below the meeting.
Shelton returns to his garage after planting the city hall bomb, then returns to his cell.
He is surprised to find Rice waiting for him.
Rice berates Shelton for taking revenge because of the pain he suffered.
Shelton suggests another deal, but Rice refuses this time, saying that he does not make deals
with murderers anymore, and thanks Shelton for teaching him that.
Rice and Dunnigan secure Shelton in the cell and leave.
Despite being pleased that Rice had finally learned his lesson, Shelton dials the cell
phone on the city hall bomb.
Shelton realizes too late that Rice has moved the bomb to his cell and the cell's entrance
to the tunnel has been sealed.
Shelton looks upon his daughter's bracelet with a sense of sadness, accepting his fate
as the bomb explodes.
Cast
Production Filming began in August 2008 and took place
in and around Philadelphia.
Filming locations included Philadelphia's City Hall and the old Eastern State Penitentiary.
The film was edited after being threatened with an NC-17 rating for violence, with the
full version released unrated on Blu-ray.
Soundtrack
The score to Law Abiding Citizen was composed by Brian Tyler, who recorded his score with
a 52-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage with help
from Kieron Charlesworth.
The movie also uses "Eminence Front" by The Who and "Engine No. 9" by Deftones on Clyde's
iPod while he is eating his steak in his cell.
While Clyde calls Darby to help him 'escape' the police after Ames' execution, "Bloodline"
by Slayer is Darby's ringer.
The tune at the end for closing credits is "Sin's A Good Man's Brother" by Grand Funk
Railroad.
Release The film was released theatrically on October
16, 2009.
The first theatrical trailer was released on August 14, 2009 and was attached to District
9.
The premiere was held on November 15, 2009 at the Cineworld complex in Glasgow - hometown
of Gerard Butler.
Many British tabloids have labeled this event as the "Homecoming Premiere", in reference
to the Homecoming Scotland celebrations.
Reception The film took second place in its opening
weekend, with $21,039,502, behind Where the Wild Things Are.
It went on to gross $126.6 million total worldwide.
Law Abiding Citizen received mixed reviews from critics.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 25% score, with an average rating
of 4.3/10 based on 155 reviews.
The site's critical consensus states that "Unnecessarily violent and unflinchingly absurd,
Law Abiding Citizen is plagued by subpar acting and a story that defies reason."
In his review for the Chicago Sun Times, Roger Ebert said, "Law Abiding Citizen is the kind
of movie you will like more at the time than in retrospect."
He then went on to say, "Still, there's something to be said for a movie you like well enough
at the time."
Ebert rated the film 3 out of 4 stars.
See also Vigilante film
List of films featuring home invasions References
External links Official website
Law Abiding Citizen at the Internet Movie Database
Law Abiding Citizen at Box Office Mojo Law Abiding Citizen at Rotten Tomatoes