There's something weird about Law Abiding Citizen, and it isn't simply the movie's attempt to gussy up the legal thriller genre with gruesome, Saw-style theatrics. No, the most notable thing about the film is how it appears to inadvertently channel the recent, inchoate Republican anger at the Obama administration and use it to power a violent revenge fantasy. Don't believe me? Here are four ways Law Abiding Citizen feels like a Republican wet dream. Mild spoilers ahead:
Sympathy with the Devil
Jamie Foxx's district attorney Nick Rice is ostensibly our hero, struggling to put an end to the murderous schemes enacted by the imprisoned Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), but it's clear that the film favors Clyde over Nick, who's caricatured as a "soft on crime" liberal that let the killers of Clyde's family walk free. Clyde, by contrast, is a death-penalty-enforcing warrior hero who hates lawyers and is distrustful of the government (unless he's being hired to conduct shadowy black ops for an unnamed administration -- that stuff's OK). In fact, he goes to trial and angles for bail specifically so that once he receives it, he can call the judge too lenient. You get the feeling that the only thing he may hate more than all this is the public option.
Weird Racial Undertones
It's a little queasy-making, too, for Republican analogue Clyde to delight in torturing a successful, politically ambitious black man. In fact, both of the film's ultimate authority figures are black if you include Viola Davis, a mayor that Clyde is targeting for (gulp) assassination. That's right: an entire set piece generates suspense from whether Nick can foil Clyde's plot to kill a black, female, presumably liberal politician. There's no sympathy generated for Davis's terse character; in fact, I had more sympathy for the actress for having to play her.
Retrograde Gender Stereotyping
Then again, the only female characters venerated in the film are the ones killed off in the opening sequence. When Clyde is granted bail and launches a tirade against his judge, he adds a gratuitous insult at the end -- "I bet you like it up the ass, don't you?" -- simply because she's a woman (what's worse is how director F. Gary Gray sets the line up to receive supportive laughs and cheers from the audience). Later, Nick's pretty, thirtysomething coworker (Leslie Bibb) is so perturbed by the murders around her that she openly questions whether she should have sacrificed having a family to pursue career advancement. It's a question the men in the film don't have to ask, since they've all managed to have families; only women must choose one or the other.
Unintentional Homoerotica
It wouldn't be an aggressively conservative movie if it didn't somehow sneak in some gay eye candy, would it? Top Gun had its bro-on-bro shirtless volleyball scene, and Law Abiding Citizen goes it one better by asking Gerard Butler to strip fully naked as Clyde surrenders to the authorities. Why? No reason, except to provide a butt shot -- as if Law Abiding Citizen wasn't already Republican masturbation material enough.