Law Abiding Citizen Trailer: Gerard Butler Gets Payback (and More Payback)
The new trailer for Law Abiding Citizen is out, pitting vigilante Gerard Butler against prosecutor Jamie Foxx in a battle of wills from which no one shall emerge unscathed. Or maybe "unscathed" isn't the right word -- perhaps we should go with unexploded, or untortured, or un-power-tooled, or any of the other variety of ways the bereft Butler's psycho-revenge plot takes on the criminal justice system in Philadelphia.
Subtract a few points for the grammatically incorrect title (it's a B-movie, remember, and hyphens are expensive these days), and you still have a taut little gem chasing its prospective audience with nasty, unapologetic glee. Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a suburban Philly family man who was just about to have dinner with his wife and young daughter when a gang of hoodlums busts in for some home-invasion murder mayhem. Later apprehended, some of the gang strike deals while others wind up on Death Row -- not good enough for Clyde, whose hollow, red-rimmed eyes belie a furious refusal to take "That's the way the justice system works" as an answer from prosecutor Nick Rice (Foxx).
Thus begins a new streak of carnage by Clyde's hand: A sabotaged execution, some routine welder/power-tool torture, a few car bombs... nothing Rice can't handle. Except he can't. Now incarcerated himself, Clyde is commanding fate from his jail cell -- a stylish, beautifully lighted sanctuary apparently borrowed from Silence of the Lambs, where Butler's grinning ultimatums and Foxx's helpless rejoinders meet in a kind of exploitation atom-smasher of moral woe, glossy violence and pitched masculine drama. How is Clyde doing it? Who knows? Who cares? By the time three cars are blown skyward in immediate succession, you're just thankful for a palate cleanser strong enough for The Ugly Truth and The Soloist combined. "I'm just getting warmed up," Butler sneers in conclusion. Here's hoping.
VERDICT: Sold!
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Comments
one of the best trailers in a very long while. i'll read the script before i make my final decision.
Boo-urns. Butler is simply Heath Ledger's Joker without the makeup. Killing female judges, committing murder while in jail, putting the whole city on lockdown, etc. He even does the ole' "sarcastic hand-clap" at 2:02. All he needs now is to lick his lips every 10 seconds and he's nailed it!
What makes you think, o' "critic" that this is a "B-moive"? It has Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx and Oscar-nominated Viola Davis..with very talented but critic-maligned Gerard Butler...People like you praise films such as "No Country for Old Men" and that horrid "Let There Be Blood" as examples of "A-list" movies. Pshaw! This one was written by talented men..Wimmer, Daramount..and I like F. Gary Gray's direction on several films. You praise "Hannibal" but his fava beans and a nice Chianti are overblown. To get Gerard Butler who played a noble, masculine King Leonidas, and a rakish charismatic shock-jock in "The Ugly Truth"..who played the Phantomo and sang...and played the sensitive man in "Dear Frankie"...God! You don't know a good actor when you see one!!!! This is going to be big...and i bet the awards from other bluenosed critics will be good, as well. This really looks exciting. I read a version of the original script, and it blew me away. I'm sure they've tinkeered with it, but it is going to be sczary and awesome. It's easier to diss movies than to praise them. I suppose you even liked the dull "Julie and Julia", huh? You proabably liked overexposed Amy Adams who does the same role with the quivering high voice in every film...Don't be prepared not to like this movie...Give it a chance. ..in spite of yourself.
Nice one! Your comment is the textual equivalent of explosive diarrhea.
Sorry, Lowbrow. I'm with Liz.