JIM reviews film “LAW ABIDING CITIZEN” – It’s like ‘James BOND’ meets ‘SAW’

“LAW ABIDING CITIZEN” – It’s like ‘James BOND’ meets ‘SAW’…

Rating: 6.5 of 10 stars (based on an advance screening) =

The ‘tag-line’ on the poster says, ‘Justice At Any Cost’. The ‘Citizen’ in the title is an engineer named Clyde Shelton (played quite well by GERARD BUTLER). An extremely violent gang breaks into his home to rob it, attacks him & kills his wife (REGINA HALL) & daughter. When the 2 guys are captured, he’s massively disappointed when the State’s Attorney’s office, mainly in the form of Nick Rice (JAMIE FOXX), makes a special “plea bargain” with the main attacker Clarence Darby (CHRISTIAN STOLTE), since Jamie is concerned with not risking his high ‘Conviction’ rate.

Ten years go by, Christian has been out of jail for a number of years, & the other attacker is set for the Death Penalty via lethal injection. But suddenly, the injection goes badly WRONG, & the authorities realize it was ‘SET-UP’ by someone they need to ‘find’. Ex-con Christian is chased by cops, seems to ‘get away’— but you soon realize GERARD is involved in all the strange happenings.

There’s a ‘SAW’-like VICIOUSNESS to the actions of Gerard (to the point that it seemed to badly DISTURB the KIDS who were unwisely brought to the screening & never taken out). Gerard goes out of his way to offer to ‘CONFESS’ to Jamie re various of the many NON-law-abiding actions going on, & you realize it’s a highly CALCULATED ‘set-up’ on his part. Bit-by-bit, he keeps utilizing ‘BOND’-like gadgets & efforts to ATTACK people he feels ‘WRONGED’ him in the way they handled the deaths of his family, & things keep spiraling more-&-more out of the control of the ‘law’, which pursues him in the form of Jamie & Detective Dunnigan (COLM MEANEY)…

I found a strange number of what are either ‘mistakes’, ‘leftover’ elements after footage was REMOVED from the film, or purposeful ‘FALSE leads’ & actions being shown in the film (for what reasons I’m not sure). The film’s end was quite UNSATISFYING to me, in that it seemed very ‘RUSHED’, poorly explained as to Gerard & somewhat illogical after the carefully-calculated work shown previously. So, while the acting was decent, the viciousness of the action (as shown by friend Tim’s comments about Bond & ‘Saw’), & especially the end dragged down the film (& thus my rating of it).