Law Abiding Citizen is a 2009 American thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray from a screenplay written by Kurt Wimmer, starring 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 the corrupt criminal justice system itself. Law Abiding Citizen was released theatrically in North America on October 16, 2009.^[3]

The film was nominated for a Saturn Award as the Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film of the year, and the film also garnered NAACP Image Awards nominations for both Jamie Foxx (Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture) and F. Gary Gray (Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture).^[4]

Plot

Two men, Clarence James Darby (Christian Stolte) and his accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart), invade the Philidelphia home of Clyde Alexander Shelton (Gerard Butler), killing his wife and daughter before his eyes. Prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), unable to use DNA evidence to convict the two, bargains with Darby to a lesser sentence in exchange for sending Ames to death row. Shelton is betrayed by Rice's actions and the justice system. Ten years later, Ames' lethal injection goes awry, making him suffer a slow, painful death. Evidence of tampering with the machine leads to Darby. An anonymous caller alerts Darby as the police draw near, and directs him to a remote location. Shelton reveals himself as the caller, and paralyzes Darby. He takes Darby to a nearby warehouse and dismembers him, recording the footage. Darby's body is found, and evidence ties his death to Shelton. Rice and his team track Shelton to a remote cabin, where he willingly gives himself up.

Rice initially refuses to bargain with Shelton to obtain a full confession until he learns his wife and daughter were sent the dismemberment recording and were traumatized by it. In court, Shelton represents himself and falls out of order, putting him in contempt of court. During his next interrogation, Shelton demands a fancy steak dinner delivered promptly. Rice agrees, though the dinner is delayed by a few minutes due to the warden's security measures. Shelton provides a set of coordinates, where Rice and the others find the corpse of Darby's lawyer, having suffocated from a lack of an air supply depleted minutes earlier. Meanwhile, Shelton kills his cellmate with the steak bone, forcing the warden to secure him in solitary confinement. Several other deaths of those connected to Shelton's case are killed in unorthodox manners, including Rice's assistant Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb) and District Attorney Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill). Rice is led to believe that Shelton has outside help in rigging these deaths, but is later contacted by an anonymous agent from the CIA who explains Shelton has previously worked with the agency as a technical expert in creating devices to assassinate targets in unusual, remote manners. The mayor (Viola Davis) puts the city under lockdown and promotes Rice to District Attorney, charging him to resolve the matter.

Rice, from an email sent by Lowell previously, discovers that Shelton owns an auto garage neighboring the prison. There, they discover a tunnel leading to a cache of guns, disguises, and other equipment below the solitary confinement cells, along with secret entrances into each. He realizes Shelton wanted to be in solitary, allowing him to easily leave the prison without detection and perform the murders himself. Evidence 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 do discover evidence pointing to a cell phone-activated suitcase bomb filled with napalm in the room directly below the meeting; if tripped, the bomb would wipe out everyone at the meeting.

Shelton returns to the garage from planting the bomb, and returns to his cell. He is surprised to find Rice waiting for him, but without remorse, calls the cell phone on the bomb. Upon this, Rice secures Shelton in the room and flees. Shelton realizes too late that Rice has placed the bomb under his cot. The explosive goes off, igniting the cell and killing Shelton.

Cast

• Jamie Foxx as Nick Rice
• Gerard Butler as Clyde Alexander Shelton
• Colm Meaney as Detective Dunnigan
• Bruce McGill as Jonas Cantrell
• Leslie Bibb as Sarah Lowell
• Michael Irby as Detective Garza
• Gregory Itzin as Warden Inger
• Regina Hall as Kelly Rice
• Emerald-Angel Young as Denise Rice
• Christian Stolte as Clarence James Darby
• Annie Corley as Judge Laura Burch
• Richard Portnow as Bill Reynolds
• Viola Davis as Mayor April Henry
• Michael Kelly as Bray
• Josh Stewart as Rupert Ames
• Roger Bart as Brian Bringham
• Dan Bittner as Serneo
• Evan Hart as Collins
• Reno Laquintano as Dwight Dixon

Production

Filming began in August 2008^{[citation needed]} and took place in and around Philadelphia. Filming locations included Philadelphia's City Hall and the old Holmesburg Prison.

The film was edited after being threatened with an NC-17 rating for violence,^[5] 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.^[6] 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.^[7] The first theatrical trailer was released on August 14, 2009 and was attached to District 9.^[8]

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.^[9]

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.^[10]

Law Abiding Citizen received mostly negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 25% of critics gave positive reviews based on 154 reviews with an average score of 4.3/10. However, the film was well-received by casual viewers, earning a 77% positive review on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 3.5/5 star user rating on Amazon.com. Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating based on 100 reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 34% based on 26 reviews. One notable exception was Roger Ebert. In his review for the Chicago Sun Times, 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 a possible 4 stars.^[11]

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