Law Abiding Citizen

A decent family man (Gerard Butler) is forced to watch two men kill his wife and child. When an attorney (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal that will let the main criminal go free after a short sentence, the family man takes matters into his own hands and starts systematically killing everybody involved with the case. Nobody should expect a film like this to be pleasant, but it goes over the line a bit. It also plays out like some sort of bad Death Wish sequel or a Saw movie, and I hate Saw movies. Butler is good here, as is Foxx, but what starts out as an interesting statement on the judicial system becomes a slasher movie, and not a very good one. The film does offer a decent shock or two, but by the end, it just left me tired. This Butler guy isn’t doing a very good job of picking scripts for himself. After this and The Ugly Truth, he’s officially in trouble.