Cast:Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Michael Irby, Gregory Itzin, Regina Hall, Emerald-Angel Young, Christian Stolte, Annie Corley, Richard Portnow, Viola Davis, Michael Kelly, Josh Stewart, Roger Bart, Dan Bittner, Evan Hart
After a home invasion leaves his wife and daughter dead, engineer Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is told that one of the criminals responsible will not be convicted, as much of the evidence against him was compromised by a bungled forensic investigation. Shelton pleads for the prosecutor, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), to take the case to court. However, Rice is mostly interested in maintaining his 96% conviction rate, and tells Shelton that it does not matter what is right, but what can be proven in court. Rice then makes a deal with Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte), the actual criminal who murdered Shelton’s wife and daughter, for third-degree murder; his accomplice, Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart), is sent to death row on what is essentially a theft charge. Shelton later sees Rice shaking hands with Darby as if they had just finished a deal.Ten years later, Ames is executed by lethal injection; due to a chemical alteration, he dies an agonizing death. Initial evidence leads to Darby, who is alerted to the presence of police by a stranger who calls Darby’s phone, helping him escape. The stranger orders Darby to throw away his gun and get in a cop car. He says that he will find a cop in the car sleeping. The caller tells Darby to make the cop drive to an abandoned warehouse. Once at the warehouse, Darby forces the cop out of the car and, with the cop’s gun, gets ready to execute him. However, the cop is revealed to be Shelton in disguise; when Darby attempts to shoot him, the gun handle injects him with tetrodotoxin, paralyzing him. Shelton proceeds to lead Darby into the warehouse, where he straps him to an operating table and systematically dismembers him alive in revenge of his family’s demise. The police come upon Darby’s remains, and they quickly arrest Shelton, who allows them to do so.Rice arrives to interrogate Shelton, and congratulates him on removing Darby from society. When Rice interrogates Shelton, he initially confesses to the crime, and Rice begins to depart, but Shelton points out that his statement is not legally admissible evidence. During this time, Rice’s family, whom Rice cannot spend enough time with due to the nature of his work (for example, he does not attend his daughter’s cello recitals), receives a DVD of Shelton torturing Darby to death. Shelton agrees to make a real confession in exchange for an expensive mattress in his prison cell. Rice agrees after his superior orders him to, as there is virtually no real evidence connecting Shelton to the murder. At his hearing, Shelton opposes Rice’s motion to deny him bail, citing obscure legal precedents. After Judge Laura Burch (Annie Corley), who also presided at Darby’s trial, agrees, Shelton begins a tirade, railing against the judge’s myopia for the law versus justice, and is removed for contempt of court.Rice delivers Shelton’s mattress and receives his confession. However, Shelton bargains to make another confession for the life of Bill Reynolds (Richard Portnow), Darby’s attorney. Shelton claims that Reynolds is alive, and will give his location in exchange for an expensive steak dinner delivered at precisely 1 p.m., along with music from his iPod. Despite repeating that the time must be exact, Warden Inger (Gregory Itzin) forces multiple searches, resulting in Shelton receiving his lunch eight minutes late. After finally getting Reynolds’ location, Rice and Detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney) take a helicopter to it, only to find Reynolds buried alive and only minutes dead, with Inger’s delay causing him to suffocate. Shelton, after finishing lunch and sharing with his cell mate, brutally murders him using the bone from the steak. Shelton is then put into a solitary confinement cell. After Rice’s assistant, Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb), finds evidence of contract payments to Shelton from the Department of Defense, district attorney Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill) takes Rice to meet a CIA operative (Michael Kelly) who worked with Shelton. The operative tells them that Shelton was a "brain" for the CIA, working in a black ops think tank, that he was the best in the field until he retired, and that if Shelton wants them dead, he’ll succeed unless they kill him first. The following day, Rice and Cantrell convince Judge Burch to sign an order restricting Shelton’s privileges, despite the fact that this violates his civil rights. Moments later, the judge answers her cell phone and is killed by a bomb placed in it.Rice confronts Shelton, who says the killings are not about revenge, but about the failure of the justice system, and Rice’s personal failure to keep his word. He then claims that, unless he is released with all charges dropped by 6 A.M., he will kill everyone in the DA’s office. The office workers congregate at the prison, they once again to do not listen to Shelton and 6 A.M. pass by. Rice sends them all home to rest. As they enter their cars, bombs go off from underneath each vehicle, killing six, including Rice’s protege Sarah. Shelton’s spree of murders on the outside while he’s behind bars continues to puzzle Rice, leaving him to speculate that Shelton has an accomplice.At Sarah’s funeral, a remote drone slaughters several attendees, including Cantrell. Rice is appointed acting DA by the mayor (Viola Davis), and a massive meeting is called to determine a way to remove Shelton. Rice, via Sarah’s computer, receives some information that points to Shelton owning a garage right next to the prison. He and Dunnigan examine the garage, finding a tunnel system leading to every solitary cell, including Shelton’s. Upon entering Shelton’s cell, Rice finds it empty.Shelton, dressed as a custodian, plants a napalm bomb in City Hall, planning to kill the mayor and most of the senior staff of the Philadelphia emergency services; however, Rice finds it. Upon his return to his cell, Shelton is confronted by Rice. Shelton offers one final deal which Rice refuses, stating that he no longer makes deals with murderers (the origin of Shelton’s anger). Rice calmly tells Shelton that if he attempts to detonate the bomb, he’ll have to live with the consequences of that action for the rest of his life. Shelton, after considering for a long moment, does so anyway, and Rice locks shut Shelton’s cell, while Dunnigan locks his escape route. Shelton quickly realizes the bomb was placed under his cot, and is incinerated while calmly staring at a bracelet made by his daughter just before the home invasion.
Trailer:
Movie files:
We recommend you to use such download managers as FDM, ReGet or FlashGet for more comfortable films download.
To achieve the best video quality download free video-codecs from Free-codecs.com.
Law Abiding Citizen comments / review
Date: 2009-12-16 20:20:27
User: Buy Truy
Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey from the Death Wish series and Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher from Marvel Comics, have nothing on Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler, 300, who also shares a producer credit). [Speaking of the Punisher, if a fourth movie was attempted, Butler would make a kick-ass Castle, provided that there’s a decent script.]
Shelton’s wife and daughter are murdered before his eyes by petty criminals Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte, Public Enemies). He is hurt terribly when up-and-coming workaholic prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx, Ray) tells him that Darby has agreed to testify against Ames in exchange for a light sentence.
That’s unacceptable to Clyde, who wants them both to pay for their heinous crimes – understandably so. He accuses Rice of not trying hard enough, that he’s just interested in continuing his winning strike. Rice counters by saying it’s what he can prove in court.
Cut ahead to 10 years. As Ames gets death by lethal injection, somebody tampered with the chemicals and the man dies a horrible, gruesome death. That is merciful compared to what happens to Darby, whose body is grotesquely dismembered into 25 pieces (his unit is cut off with a box-cutter – shudder, shudder), while injected with a chemical that keeps him paralyzed yet fully aware of his surroundings the entire time. This was something out of the Saw films.
All evidence points to Clyde, who goes quietly along with the police. You’d think he’d stop there, but doesn’t as he wants revenge against Rice and the entire prosecutor’s office of Philadelphia, whom he blames for letting his family’s killers go with nothing but a slap on the wrist.
The crimes get progressively worse as Clyde brings the city to its knees – from his jail cell, no less. Turns out, Rice was a defense contractor for the government whose specialty was killing targets at remote distances. It took him 10 years to orchestrate these crimes, putting him up there with Kevin Spacey’s Joe Doe from 1995’s Se7en. The difference between the two is that Spacey’s character was insane, whereas Butler’s is perfectly sane (he even studied law as his home library is filled with law tomes). That is what makes him so dangerous and scarier than Spacey’s character. What’s also sad is the fact that he was a law abiding citizen (hence the title of the film) before the murder of his family.
To talk any more about the plot would give too much away as Clyde continues to play cat and mouse with Rice. Fair warning: It is NOT for the squeamish. That said, writer Kurt Wimmer (1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair) delivers a riveting action thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat – with several moments that make you jump out of your seat – until the very end. What’s more is the fact that this movie actually has a plot – something that has taken a backseat in this day and age of state-of-the-art special effects. Wimmer is aided and abetted by director F. Gary Gray who knows a thing or two about helming action-packed movies, such as 1998’s The Negotiator and 2003’ s The Italian Job.
Further, in addition to leads Butler and Foxx, there’s a strong supporting cast that includes Bruce McGill (Animal House), Leslie Bibb (Iron Man), Colm Meaney (TV’s Star Trek: Deep Space 9), Gregory Itzin (TV’s 24), Regina Hall (Scary Movie 3-4), and Viola Davis (Madea Goes To Jail).
Face facts: movies have been awful this year. There have only been a select few that I’ve turned cartwheels over – Duplicity, State of Play being two. I can safely say without reservation that Law Abiding Citizen can be added to my list as the third.
Date: 2009-12-29 22:25:12
User: PostFilm
After his family are murdered, Gerard Butler goes out for revenge in a piece of big, brash, brains-out popcorn fodder best savoured after last orders.
In a revenge movie positively marinated in testosterone, you're never more than a few minutes away from an explosion, a grisly death or a car chase. Unfortunately, no amount of sound and fury can disguise a plot that becomes more and more ludicrous. If you thought the Death Wish movies couldn't be dumbed down, here's clunking proof to the contrary.
Butler is Clyde Shelton, whose world is torn apart when his wife and daughter are tortured and killed during a break-in. When one of the murderers gets off with a light sentence thanks to Jamie Foxx's assistant DA, the grieving dad goes from law-abiding citizen to one-man killing machine intent on bringing down not just the psycho, but the whole corrupt justice system.
The last half-hour is preposterous, but the film's worst fault is that we're asked to root for Clyde as he goes from righteous avenger to complete nutjob.
Like I said, make sure you've had a skinful before buying that ticket.