After the media made a big deal out of Peter Parker getting fired from his job, as if this has something to do with the recession regardless of the fact that he was fired and not laid off, Geeks Not Nerds asks this question: why does the media find these sorts of comic events newsworthy? Let us know you think in the comments!
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I was pleasently surprised to discover that Gerard Butler’s character in Law Abiding Citizen is more than just another vigilante out to get revenge on someone for murdering his family. Clyde reminds me a little of Roarschach fom Watchmen in his view of the world. He sees things completely in black and white and refuses to compromise his principles, so he sets out to make a point to the justice system that allowed the killer of his family to go free after five years, and that point is this: a civil servant has a higher duty than to simply fill what the rules say are his quota. The prosecutor in the case of Clyde’s family’s murder, Nick (Jaimie Foxx) wants to maintain his 96% prosecution rate, and even though he wins the case, that’s not enough for Clyde. They won, but Clyde doesn’t feel it was really about bringing the murderer to justice, especially because Clyde made a deal with him to get information.
The film may not get all of its legal facts right, but it’s far from a popcorn movie. It had me thinking all the way through. Clyde kills the man who murdered his family, but he doesn’t stop there– he’s been planning an elaborate plot to exact “justic” on everyone involved in his case. Each step of the way, I tried to guess what Clyde’s next move would be and how his decisions play into his plans, especially allowing himself to be put in jail and making various deals with Nick to get little things, like a bed and a catered lunch. These scenes provide some moments of comedy in an otherwise dark story, but they’re neccessary to the story and ultimately add dimension to it, once all the facts are there. Sometimes in movies, it’s impossible to imagine any character devising such brilliant, elaborate schemes, but by the end of this one, I believed it. The script is careful to give Clyde a back story that accounts for his brilliance and sufficient time to plan the scheme, which is rare and refreshing.
Jaimie Foxx gives a real and human performance as Nick. I believed he was a good lawyer, I believed he was a caring man who loved his family (which is played thematically as the thing he and Clyde have in common), but I also appreciated that he was a little corrupted by the system. Clyde makes him reconsider the way he views his job and the impact it has on people’s lives. On the other hand, the movie doesn’t treat Clyde as a hero. It never condones what he does, and Nick has opportunities to make Clyde question the way he views the world as well. This is a film that lays out some of our society’s issues, things few people would argue aren’t problems, but it seems to challenge us and ask what we might do if we wanted to change them. Clyde has an extreme, bloody solution, and as I said, he’s certainly not a hero.
I found myself wondering exactly who the protagonist of this movie is supposed to be. I suppose if I had to choose between the two it would be Nick, especially since Jaimie Foxx is given top billing, but it’s really both of their stories made into one movie. I’m not sure that’s even a criticism, given that choosing one as the “protagonist” would, in this case, instantly cast the other as the “antagonist,” and then the movie would have to side with one. Still, it’s a story-telling technique that puzzled me and I can’t think of many instances where it would work as well as it does here.
Both the opening and the closing of the film are too short. More scenes are needed in both places. The movie has a definite conclusion, but I wanted one more sequence to make a sort of final statement. And the beginning falls into one of the only usual traps this kind of film usually falls into: killing a main character’s family and making that the defining moment in his life without taking the time to really establish his relationship with him. The family lives of both main characters seem cookie-cutter to me; the writing seemed more typical and lazy in these scenes than anywere else in the film.
This is an excellent example of an action movie that plays like a serious drama. The explosions, the one torture scene, etc. are there because they have to be there, and none of it feels gratuitous. If you’re a Star Trek fan, you’ll want to check this out for a great performance by Colm Meany and a surprise minor role from Bruce McGill (Captain Braxton in Voyager’s “Relativity”).
