Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

I will give the new film from director F. Gary Gray (FRIDY, THE NEGOTIATOR, THE ITALIAN JOB) and writer Kurt Wimmer (EQUILIBRIUM, THE RECRUIT, STREET KINGS) credit where it's due. Early on, the filmmakers of the exceedingly violent and often extremely entertaining LAW ABIDING CITIZEN make the very clear decision that they are going to go for broke in terms of how bat-shit crazy they can make their story of Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), who seeks revenge, justice and a kind of balance after his wife and young child are slaughtered before his eyes during a robbery. The man he fixates on is Assistant District Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who cuts a deal to sentence one of the criminals to death and the other to a much lesser penalty for testifying against the first. Shelton is appalled that the actual killer of his family will get a maximum of five years in prison, but rather than simply kill those responsible for the murder and setting one of them free, he embarks on a 10-year plot to teach those in the justice system a lesson about doing the right thing versus worrying about keeping your conviction rate up.

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN has two things going for it. First, it has a dense and interesting plot that goes way beyond any revenge film I've seen in quite a while. The film keeps a few secrets to itself, but in the end, it all kind of makes sense and seems plausible in the enhanced and insane world that it builds. Second, there are two very interesting characters at the heart of the film. It seems like a bit of a stretch that Butler's character just happens to be a military assassin who specialized in killing targets who were unreachable. What terrible luck for anyone who crosses him. But it did make me consider that maybe Shelton was borderline psychotic even before his family was murdered, and that only his wife and daughter were keeping the sanity pin in place.

Once the plea bargain is set, Shelton has a breakdown in front of Rice, and then the film skips ahead 10 years about as abruptly as this transition. More precisely, the plot jumps to when the death row convict is about to be executed. Rice has now firmly established himself as top dog in the D.A.'s office, and Shelton has been quietly plotting, even dropping off the radar for a couple of years. The lethal injection execution goes horribly wrong, and the convict's death is long and painful. Somehow, one of the injected solutions had been swapped out with something more excruciating. And within a few hours Shelton has taken care of his family's executioners and has made no effort to hide the fact or avoid capture. The rest of the film is a series of negotiations between the two men. From behind bars, Shelton is somehow able to systematically pick off people directly or indirectly associated with the deal cut 10 years earlier. In order to stop the killings, Shelton negotiates deals with Rice for creature comforts in his cell and other favors. It's a strange series of requests but it all makes sense in the end.

One of things I liked so much about LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is its patience. There are a quite a few questions that director Gray and company aren't in any hurry to get answered. And the payoffs, for the most part, are solid and worth the wait. But more importantly, when the film decides to play on the violent and explicit side of the street, you better wear a poncho. There is one death in particular that I did not see coming until it was already done. You may bust out laughing at the cleverness of the kill, but that doesn't make it any less brutal and cool. I also was seriously impressed with what Butler achieves here. With one or two exceptions over the years, I've never been that impressed with him as a serious actor, but he has this feral look in his eyes for much of the film and it's a convincing portrayal of a man prepared to go "biblical" on the entire rotting core of the city (in this case, Philadelphia). On the flip side (yes, I said it), Jamie Foxx is a bit more subdued than I'm used to seeing him. His is more of a slow-burn performance that still really worked, but he's often overshadowed by Butler's butt-nuts-crazy ways.

If I had one huge complaint about LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, it's that the ending doesn't deliver nearly as powerfully as the rest of the movie. It's too neat and perfect, in a film stacked high on messy, unpleasant and bloody moments. It's actually a minor offense that it didn't wreck my overall positive vibes from the movie, but the neat-bow ending feels awkward and clumsy. With a few nice guest shots from the likes of Colm Meany as a detective, Bruce McGill as another worker bee at the D.A.'s office, Leslie Bibb as Rice's sidekick, and Viola Davis as the city's mayor. Whether or not the film's messages penetrate your brain or not isn't really the point; they might not even make sense if they did. There was more than one instance where I was genuinely baffled by what Butler's character was really trying to prove by killing people who weren't even involved in the original case. Still, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is a warped kind of entertainment that you just don't get every week at the movies. It's a twisted morality play wrapped inside a puzzle box and liberally smothered in blood. Actually, when you put it that way, it sounds pretty tasty. I might not be able to pass a test on this film's exact point, but I had a great time wallowing in my confusion.

-- Capone
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