Law Abiding Citizen – Post Viewing

Back in August I wrote a bit about the film Law Abiding Citizen as I normally do. Meaning that I usually give my opinion pre-release and then review the actual film once I see it. So with that said, what I wrote back in August was pretty much on the nose on this one. In that the movie is pretty good, it was a stretch for Gerard Butler and that the release timing was just a bit too quick.

One question I had was that I hope the movie once released was able to keep it live and entertaining since the story was a familiar one and had been done so many times. Well it was for sure, I was on the edge of my seat, along with everyone in the packed theatre, even though we knew the husband was out for revenge, we didn’t quiet understand what he would do or how far he would go. It was very creative to say the least and paced perfectly so that not only we got answers to all questions but were suspensefully entertained along the way.

Butler delivered his role as tho he were Hannibal in training and Jamie Foxx, who I am not a fan of but respect his work, was a fair match to Butler’s character. The duel between good and evil was challenged and fought smartly and fairly.

As for the release date being too early, I think that was the only set back for this film because it was obvious (only to the critics) that the script didn’t tie a couple of lose ends. Case in point, if there was only 25 seconds for a bomb to explode in a prison cell, how is the person standing next to bomb and activating it, while still talking to the prisoner, able to make it through the corridors and get outside to the parking lot as the bombs explode behind him? The other gap was the small detail of clarifying why if the killer got out of prison in 5 years, it wasn’t until another 5 before Butler’s character decided to get his revenge (I understood the reasons) but it’s pretty unrealistic or unbelievable to hold a grudge for 5 years let alone 10.