Hola all. Massawyrm here.

It’s a very weird experience when you can pinpoint with complete accuracy the moment a film goes wildly off the rails; when you can turn to your friends outside the theater and say “Man, I really dug this movie until,” and watch their eyes light up as they nod along because that’s exactly when it lost them too. Most downhill films don’t have such a defining moment; their slow, awkward decline into suck relatively quiet until you suddenly realize that you’re not enjoying the film anymore. But when they do, it is positively jarring – you know, like when Fonzie jumped that shark, coining the term. LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is a textbook example of a good idea gone bad, a film built on a solid idea that overreaches and zags when it should have zigged, offering one half of an entertaining film followed by a silly, feeble satire of its earlier self.

The film opens rather unsurprisingly. Gerard Butler answers the door and is the subject of a rather brutal home invasion. It’s not very much of a revenge film without a good home invasion, after all. And once we dispatch with all the unpleasantries, we breeze through a setup that effectively allows one of the criminals to all but walk. This, as you might imagine, makes Gerard Butler understandably angry. What follows is one of the best 20 minute short films in recent memory. Tense, raw, brutal – LAW ABIDING CITIZEN becomes in that 20 minutes a perfect distillation of everything this type of movie usually is, sans every last bit of fat. And once it has climaxed you sit there wondering: where the hell is this gonna go now?

And that’s when the movie gets REALLY fucking interesting. The situation is this. You’ve got a guy who wants revenge not only for what was done to him, but also for the miscarriage of justice – which now makes everyone involved on the original 10 year old case a target. But here’s the kicker. He’s locked away in jail, completely unable to do anything, and yet his plan seems to be carrying itself out like clockwork. How the hell is he doing it?

10 years of planning, that’s how.

And at this point of the film, you are pretty glued to your seat. Gerard Butler has become a scary dude, but a dude you can totally sympathize with. He’s not entirely wrong and comes across as Jigsaw (from the SAW series) but without the insanity. Cold, calculating, deliberate; this man has thought out every step of his plan and laid it out with such precision that he no longer needs to have his freedom to pull it off. And that is fucking bad ass.

Except, then the film decides to pull the rug out from under you. And in one pure moment of WTF, all of your excitement for the film deflates as you realize that no, there is no way this is a plan involving “precision”. Something else is afoot. And the second half of the film is entirely about unearthing what exactly is going on. Let me tell you now, the answer is entirely unsatisfactory. Butler goes from being a questionable anti-hero to being an unbelievable super-villain complete with a secret lair and a vintage Col. Trautman “You don’t know who you’re messing with” moment.

And it gets pretty god damned ridiculous from there on out. Every last bit of good will earned up front finds itself spent by the end as bad dialog, cheesy situations and character inconsistencies begin to mount up. And while the final moments are elegantly shot, they’re more than a little contrived and might cause a number of people to double over with laughter. It’s a film I very much wanted to see pull itself out of its tailspin, but somewhat enjoyed as it spiraled down and slammed into the ground. It went from very cool to guilty pleasure on down to not even really worth it.

Marred by some terrible performances out of normally solid people - all probably trying desperately to wrap their minds around where the hell the plot was going – LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is the epitome of a here-today-forgotten-tomorrow film. Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler are both beginning to come across as guys who read the first few pages of a script and listen to the pitch only to trust their instincts and end up in forgettable film after forgettable film. Neither lives up to their potential here. This is one of those movies that will be mined for ideas ten years down the road when someone decides to make this movie for real. But now? Not really worth a look.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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