Do you remember the movie "Se7en" when the serial killer reveals his plan and it builds like the crescendo of an epic John Williams score? Remember how Kevin Spacey is kneeling in the desert, bound at the wrists, and he magically uncuffs himself and runs away into the distance because all of the detectives' guns suddenly jam? Of course you don't, because it didn't happen. The writers, crew, actors and even the extras of the film would have mutinied faster than you can blink, and the desert would have silently swallowed the director's grave whole. The mutiny was needed to save this movie too.
"Law Abiding Citizen" was spectacular for the first 105 minutes and then, like a hungry runaway, it sold itself so fast I felt like crying. The film was 108 minutes long, and, up until those last few moments burned my eyes, I felt as if I was watching greatness unfold before me. Sure, it stole a few things from the "Saw" franchise and wasn't necessarily going out of its way to set a new standard in psychological thrillers, but it was almost entirely satisfying and saturated with righteous, shocking violence. The plot was twisted and murky, the main characters were devilish and flirted with villainy, and the jokes and retorts were clever and sharp. The people in the theater laughed and let out so many, "No, he didn'ts," that at one point, it seemed as if people were having as much fun adding sound effects as they were watching Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler duel. Woohoo for audience participation!
For an hour and a half, I watched Butler's character, who is described as a military "brain," destroy every single person he wanted to, following a plan it took him 10 years to develop.
Gruesome, merciless, but idealistic, both sides of the argument about a corrupt judicial system were compelling. Morality and revenge were dishes best served a decade cold.
But none of that saved the movie from succumbing to the sin of the "happy ending." There is nothing, my friends, more poisonous and detrimental to the quintessential great movie than that icky, masturbatory temptation. Not all good guys should win. There, I said it. But in a film such
as this one, when neither character is particularly good and the whole existential dilemma depends on a man seeking to destroy the system that wronged him, there is no excuse for a weak finish. And, spoiler alert, the climax where Foxx finds a conspicuous box and takes down the brilliant, military-trained vigilante is weaker than the bite of a kitten.
Adding the feel-good ending, instead of the unnerving one, wrung the life out of the story and left me desperately hoping that the DVD will feature an alternate ending. But at this point, I would have to know that such an ending existed before I'd rent this butchered masterpiece.
Contact staff writer Jordan Trippeer at jordan.trippeer@richmond.edu
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