Film review: Law Abiding Citizen

The title of this film was a puzzling one for a self-proclaimed crime/action film. What could possibly be interesting about a regular, clean member of society. I’ll say this now, I thought about the title of this film every few minutes watching this, and I think there’s value in disclosing what I felt the film tried to do with that.

The small phrase ‘law abiding citizen’ brings with it the simplest connotation, that someone is decent and trustworthy. What this film does, and does so fantastically, is challenge that. You can be a law-abiding citizen and also be selfish and manipulative. At the same time, you can be a criminal and act only with selflessness and compassion. What I thought was interesting too was the outside perspective of this persona, you could be an innocent bystander who was trying to help someone who’d been gravely injured, then become framed. In the public’s perspective you are not a law-abiding citizen, the guy that got away with it is. I think this is something to take into the film if you watch it.

On the film itself, I was stunned by how complex and thought-provoking some of the undertones in this production. Many scenes were grisly and disturbing, and you did not know who was in the right for a good part of the movie. The best part of this was that both Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx’s characters both seemed certain that they were in the right, especially in the early stages. Both absolutely perfect performances from them both. It’s rare, even in the most complex of action films, to relinquish the roles of hero and villain, and it was a lot of fun to swing back and forth between the two ideologies.

There was an outrageous tone to some of the story, the lengths it went to were, at times, ludicrous. But it’s an action, it’s a tired cliché for reviewers to get annoyed about such details. I was in awe watching this and I laughed at the audacity of Gerard Butler’s character. For what it was, I can’t really outright fault it

Rating: 8.5/10