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75One of those movies you like more at the time than in retrospect.
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70The script does create sufficient tension and intrigue to hook viewers along with a photogenic, hardworking cast.
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63That the film, directed in swift strokes by F. Gary Gray from a screenplay credited to Kurt Wimmer, doesn't really work - unrelentingly grim, unintentionally funny - is almost beside the point. It's a wild concept.
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60True torture-porn aficionados will be disappointed, as editor Tariq Anwar cuts away right before blade meets flesh -- a move that feels a tad, well, gutless under the circumstances. But elsewhere, "Citizen" proves startlingly graphic, even by R-rated standards.
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50The payback in Law Abiding Citizen doesn't have a cathartic kick, because the revenge is so extreme it's horrifying.
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50Deep within Law Abiding Citizen lurks a thought-provoking movie. But most of what we see on the screen is implausible, superficial and only marginally involving.
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50The biggest problem with Law Abiding Citizen, however, is that the plot is just plain dumb.
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50LawAbiding Citizen smells a bit musty these days. Indeed, in an era when the debate has shifted from too little state vigilance to too damn much, this thing seems almost quaint.
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42Clyde is meant to be nuts, but too often it's Law Abiding Citizen that checks rationality at the door.
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42The movie starts out as a potboiler with a troubling character arc; unfortunately, it ends up becoming a goofy, story-overwhelming Rube Goldberg contraption that would make the producers of the "Saw" series blush.
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40We're supposed to be awed, but a more reasonable response is to giggle. How does a Kevlar tie kill? And if it can, why hasn't the CIA sent a Kevlar scarf to Osama bin Laden?
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40Relentlessly ugly, preposterous and hackneyed of dialogue: guilty on all counts. It will do well, then.
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40Law Abiding Citizen, ultimately and inappropriately, tips the scales in favor of the Man over mankind. Somebody call Charles Bronson.
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The film's greatest sin isn't its cynical moral posturing but its complete failure to engage audiences on even a visceral level.
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38Jeez, did the "surprise" climax have to be this eye-rollingly stupid?
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30Such a lazy action-drama underachiever, it seems unfair to target stars Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler for bringing their C game.
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If the filmmakers meant a word of it, they'd quit making films and do something more useful. "Saw" with a conscience is not what the world needs.
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30Wears its preposterousness with a certain pride. It's about the cat-and-mouse game between two very smart guys, and it's perfectly happy to be as dumb as it wants.
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30Butler has the showier part, but his impersonation of the tragic hero is undercut by his weird resemblance to Soupy Sales. You start hoping that Shelton will kill somebody with a custard (or puffer-fish) pie to the face.
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A movie devoted to baroque revenge would be, on its own terms, acceptable; what makes Law Abiding Citizen so risible is its humorless conviction that it's got Big Ideas at its core.
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Generally I don't mind a little recreational fascism as long as it's deep-fried in savory violent vengeance, but this overwrought mess gives vigilantism a bad name.
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25At last, the missing link be tween "Phantom of the Opera" and "Saw." Welcome to the gonzo revenge saga Law Abiding Citizen.
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Vigilante movies hold a firm place in cinematic history, but for them to work, the vigilante needs to be a sympathetic anti-hero.
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25Like a lot of action-movie directors, Gray lacks the imagination to view the art of cat-and-mouse as more than a chance to play with state-of-the-art war technology.
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25A vigilante/torture-porn potpourri, is particularly toxic because it's scented with phony importance.
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25A flagrantly ridiculous thriller that tries to retrofit "Saw" to function as a mainstream, semi-respectable vigilante picture
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 46 out of 76
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Mixed: 13 out of 76
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Negative: 17 out of 76
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