Gerard Butler has been grabbing a lot of attention after his movie 300. While the movie was not the most commercially successful one, I think it brought him into limelight big time. The whole charm now with him is that you get curious to see him in a normal avatar-without the beard and 8 pack abs. That is what made me curious to watch "The Ugly Truth". If you have watched it you would know, it totally sucked. I fell prey again this time and went for Law abiding Citizen. The logic that I used to justify the watch was that it is an action flick which might suit him better. And of course there was Jamie Foxx( who possibly is the most talented and creative Hollywood actor. The guy sings amazingly, does amazing stand up comedy and his acting in all his movies that I have seen so far obviously rocks... )
As it turns out I was not totally disappointed by the film… but Gerard Butler sucked Big time.
Plot
Law Abiding citizen is a story of an inventor (Butler) whose wife and children get killed by a couple of burglars. Fearing he would lose the case, the public prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) makes a deal with one of bad guys since he agrees to testify against the other. So one guy gets a death sentence and the other only few years in jail. This upsets Butler who loses faith in the judicial system and for 10 years hatches a detailed plot to teach Jamie Foxx & the whole "system” a lesson. And he does this all sitting in a jail cell – to find out how he does it, you need to watch the film.
Pluses
Throughout, the movie moves with breakneck pace and keeps the curiosity going. It becomes very clear from the beginning that Butler is going to plot to kill the bad guy who does not get the death sentence, but then he kills him within the first half hour of the movie and on top of it gets himself arrested !!!. However even after that he keeps coming up with surprises and killing almost everyone involved in his trial. This keeps you guessing as to what he will do next and helps keep the momentum of the movie going.
In addition there are some really good special effects – Specially the last scene where they show an explosion in slow motion. Just made the end awesome. Also there is this scene where he kills a judge using a phone bomb. Took everyone by surprise.
Minuses
Even though the suspense works well there were some really really stupid scenes that did not make sense. I won’t reveal the mystery but how Butler actually manages to work things sitting in his jail cell is too far fetched and hard to believe.
Also in the final sequence, when butler plants a bomb in a court building, he just leaves a Janiter’s cart right in front of the room, where he keeps the bomb. So it takes the good guys 2 second to figure out where the bomb is. Also he keeps the bomb in a simple suitcase , right in the middle of a room where everyone can see it… He is supposed to be a super intelligent gadget freak, who makes deadly bombs, but somehow almost nonchalantly makes this mistake. Hard to believe
All in All Lots of movies have released this weekend, and frankly I’d say you can save this one for the DVD.
NOT a must watch.