Movie: Law Abiding Citizen

Our advice: Watch the movie up to the point where Gerard Butler's character plants the suitcase bomb. Then get up and leave. We promise, it will be more fulfilling if you imagine the ending rather than watch it. If you want to know why, read the review below.

Review:
Today we went to see Law Abiding Citizen, the new movie with the extremely hot Gerard Butler (Blogger 1's opinion) and Jamie Fox. Just as a little synopsis, Gerard Butler's character is that of a pissed of man who witnessed the murder of his wife and daughter. Jamie Fox, is a prosecuting attorney who is obsessed with his reputation as the guy with the highest conviction rate. He is the prosecuter in the case against the two men who murdered Butler's family, but Fox cuts a deal with one of them, allowing the man who actually committed the murders to plead guilty to 3rd degree and sit in jail for about three years. His partner, who did not directly kill anyone, is given the death penalty. We skip to ten years later. The man on death row is finally being executed, but it's not the painless death it was supposed to be. Yep, Butler sabatoged the machine. He then gets ahold of the real murderer and gets rid of him in a pretty wicked way. The movie progresses as Butler begins to target those responsible for or involved in the case that left him completely dissatisfied. All while he is sitting in prison.

It was an excellent movie. It had everything. Revenge, suspense, and an insane but very charismatic and highly intelligent guy who is pissed at the faulty legal system. He goes after the corrupt system, and the people who seem to bend the rules, or blatantly ignore them, to serve themselves. You find yourself rooting for him (Butler) the whole time. He kills the murderers, then moves on to the defense attorney who cut the deal, the judge who thinks she is above the law, then takes out a huge part of the prosecuting office employees, kills the DA, and finally targets the mayor and every power player in the Philadelphia government. His goal is to bring down the system entirely, and reveal the corruption that has rotted it from the inside out. All the time, he is sitting in jail, so it's thoroughly impressive. He is fifty steps ahead of Fox and his investigation.

Then it turned to crap. It turned to crap psychotically fast. At record breaking speed. Suddenly Butler, who worked for the CIA for ten years, the guy who has figured out how to kill people that no one else could kill, the guy who has been planning this for ten years, the guy who assassinates people from prison, got stupid and lazy. It was like all the writers died when the climax had to be written, and they handed the script over to some college freshman who had no idea what the hell he was doing. It was painfully cliche. All of a sudden, Fox and his cronies grew brains over night and figured out how to out smart Butler, save the mayor, foil his plans, and catch him in his own devices. With everything he has done, Butler is not going to leave his plans in the hands of something so careless and stupid as putting the bomb in a suitcase. No. No. No, damn it, NO. This guy would have rigged the chandeliers five years earlier, and no one would have known what the hell he was doing, or ever been able to figure it out. Let us express to you how good Butler was. There was a guy targeted by professional killers. They used bombs and everything, and could never touch him. So they got ahold of Butler. He came up with a neck tie that strangled the guy when he put it on, and no one was the wiser. That's how incredibly amazing Butler was. That's how smart. He was a thinker, he was the Brain. He had ideas, and other people did the manual labor. He was sought after by professional killers. Need I stress that any more??? If that's not enough, try this. He has tunnel systems beneath the prison, and he has been coming and going this entire time, in and out of solitary confinement, and no one ever knew. He outsmarted everyone throughout the entire movie. How, in all heck, does he suddenly get careless and lazy? He has no security on the building that the tunnels go to, he puts his success in the hands of a freaking suit case bomb, and he leaves a trail that leads Fox right to it. It made no sense whatsoever.

Possibly the worst part, amidst all this crap, was the timeline. There is a scene where Fox and his guys are standing around the pathetic nepalm bomb that was meant to blow up the mayor. Meanwhile, while they are looking at it, wondering what to do, Butler is already in his car and heading back to the prison. In fact, he is pulling up to the warehouse, where the tunnels come out at, while Fox is still staring at the damn bomb. Butler goes back down the tunnels, changes his clothes, and climbs back into his prison cell. And Fox is magically there in his cell! How the hell is that possible? Even if the rest hadn't been fudged up, this was just purely sloppy as far as the writing goes. Fox was in the capital building when Butler was crawling back into his cell. Apparently he also developed teleporting powers along with a brain. Amazingly, he gets from the capital building in the middle of the city all the way back to the prison in the middle of no where in the time it takes Butler to go down his short tunnel and get back in his cell. And it gets better. Not only is Fox in the cell, he had time to hide the suitcase bomb beneath Butler's bed so when he detonates it, he blows himself up.The ending is a sickening scene of Fox watching his ten year old daughter at her cello recital. There was a chance right there, for the movie to redeem itself. Fox had a neck tie on. It could have strangled him and killed him. But no. Butler died, and the world is happy again.

Blogger 2 had a great metaphor for it. It was like eating one of the greatest meals you have ever had. It tastes great, eveything has been flawless. Then it's time for desert. It's the part you've been waiting for the entire time, and what do you get? A bag of dog shit. And the worst part, it gets shoved down your throat. You HAVE to eat it. You have no choice.

All in all, it was one of the most tragic movies we've ever seen. The ending butchered what could have been one of the best movies made in a long time.