.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Dollars to donuts you haven't heard of F. Gary Gray. Gray is a director. And a damn good one. In 1998, he was behind the camera for the Samuel L. Jackson/Kevin Spacey thriller, The Negotiator. Damn good film. In 2003, Gray helmed The Italian Job. Again, damn good film.

Sure, during this time, he also directed A Man Apart with Vin Unleaded, but hey, not everyone is perfect.

What F. Gary Gray is good at is directing action films. And he is back behind the camera for the first time since 2005's Be Cool with the Jamie Foxx/Gerard Butler vehicle, Law Abiding Citizen.

Penned by Kurt Wimmer (who wrote the underrated Equilibrium), Law Abiding Citizen is an action packed thriller about a father who takes matters into his own hands after his family is murdered and the killers are set free. Butler plays Clyde Shelton, the father and central figure in the story that decides to extract revenge on anyone and everyone that he believes didn't do enough to ensure that the justice system represented his loss. That means all lawyers, criminals and pretty much anyone in the city of Philadelphia.

At the eye of the avenging storm is Assistant DA Nick Rice (Foxx). Foxx was an up and comer in the DA's office when he cut a deal with one of the killers for additional testimony. Safe to say that Clyde wasn't impressed. Fast forward ten years and we watch as one of the two killers (the one who didn't put the knife into Clyde's wife and child) is being put to death via lethal injection. I'll be brief and just say that things don't go as planned.

Seems around the same time one of the participants in the killing is being off'ed, his partner is running free on the Philadelphia streets. That is until Clyde finds him and goes all Hostel on his ass.

It doesn't take long for the DA's office to connect the dots and they go after Clyde for the murder.
Clyde is brought in for questioning and quickly admits his guilt while further revealing that others will suffer unless the justice system is corrected so that no other person might have to suffer the flawed system that failed Clyde so deeply.

The cat and mouse game between Clyde and Nick is unique in that all the violence in an attempt to 'fix' the system and punish all those that let the killer walk out of jail a free man, occur while Clyde is in custody. This leads them to believe that Clyde has an accomplice and between his demands while in prison and the bodies that continue to stalk up while he is playing out his revenge game, we are subjected to the over obvious booms, bangs and pows.

The biggest problem with Law Abiding Citizen is that it brings almost nothing new to the table. Everything seems recycled from the plot to the script ("It's going to be Biblical" got laughs where it shouldn't). It was hard enough to believe that a random piece of violence can befall a man that is so well resourced and educated in killing techniques, but it is trying our limits when it is revealed how Clyde is able to perform all these acts from his prison cell.

The two leads, Butler and Foxx do little to inspire the lackluster story. Both acted like cardboard cutouts and their supporting casts had so little to do (Colm Meaney notwithstanding) that there was no cream to rise to the top of the crop.

The action is admirable. One particular scene had the entire audience jump as high as I have seen in years. But between each new crime scene, there were sweet nothings to keep us glued.

Law Abiding Citizen is like 12 Rounds only a bit better. It is a Saturday afternoon cable movie that keeps you interested while nursing a hangover. Nothing more. Sorry F. Gary Gray. I wanted to use this movie to get people acquainted with your work. Let's hope you don't wait another 4 years to correct this misstep.