Law Abiding Citizen (Minor Spoilers)

There goes that silly Gerard Butler again: trying to fake an American accent and getting naked on screen. Unfortunately, he's only good at one of these things. But that's only the tip of the problems-this-film-presents-iceberg.

The movie starts out with Clyde Shelton's wife and daughter being raped and murdered by burglars. After a year at trial, the culprit, Darby, who actually did the raping and murdering makes a deal with Nick Rice, the prosescuting attorney trying to keep his perfect conviction record, to testify against his partner who was really just there to steal stuff. So the partner gets the death penalty and Darby gets a few years in prison for third-degree murder. Shelton isn't too happy with Rice. But he waits...

Ten years later, after what I'm guessing is loads of excruciating planning and learning, Shelton comes back for revenge. First against the bad guys then against everyone who played a part in the deal with Darby.

At first I was all for Shelton taking out the bad guys, kind of like in A Time to Kill only much more elaborate (seriously, I thought the film had wandered onto the Saw VII set for a few minutes there), and Darby's defense attorney. Then he starts taking out the DA's office. Okay, no biggie, the world could spare a few lawyers, except the one I work for cause Mama needs a new car. He also goes after the judge, which was fine by me, since in real life most female judges I've encountered are royal bitches. But when Shelton decides to take down every elected official in Philadelphia, I quit caring for him. I mean really, how many of these people were in office 10 years prior when the crime happened? A bit silly, no? Unfortunately, there was no else for me to care about as Nick Rice was a rather bland character played rather blandly by Jaime Fox.

Did I mention that Shelton was doing all this from prison? No? Oh well, he was, which led to a big mystery of who his accomplice was and so on. When I'm watching a great suspense-thriller-mystery, I want to keep guessing until the big reveal. During this flick, I just found myself numb to it all. I didn't want to put the energy into trying to figure it out.

With all that being said, despite the glaring plot holes (why did the burglars leave Clyde alive?), the bad acting, and the fail of the big reveal, I was still entertained for two hours. Maybe it was to see the various ways in which a man hell bent on revenge can kill so many folks. Maybe it was to know whether or not Nick Rice would get served his just desserts. Or maybe it was for more naked Gerard Butler. Hey, I said he was good at ONE of those things. You didn't actually think it was faking an American accent, did you?

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