Law Abiding Citizen
Encyclopedia
Law Abiding Citizen is a 2009 thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray
from a screenplay written by Kurt Wimmer
, starring Jamie Foxx
and Gerard Butler
. The film takes place in Philadelphia and tells the story of a man whose developed sociopathic tendencies drove him into killing while targeting not only his family's killer but also the criminal justice
system. Law Abiding Citizen was released theatrically in North America on October 16, 2009.
The film was nominated for a Saturn Award
as the Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film of the year, and the film also garnered NAACP Image Awards nominations for both Jamie Foxx (Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture) and F. Gary Gray (Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture).
), an engineer, witnesses the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte
). During their trial, prosecutor
Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx
) informs Clyde that the case against Darby is weak due to botched forensic evidence and that Clyde's testimony alone is insufficient to prove either suspect's guilt. Nick, against his own will, is forced to strike a deal, which is that Darby will give testimony that will send Darby's accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart
) to death row
and in exchange, he pleads guilty to third-degree murder, for which he will only serve three years in prison. Knowing that Darby is the actual killer, Clyde is left feeling betrayed by both Nick and the justice system.
Ten years later, Rupert tries to maintain his innocence but is executed by lethal injection
, although rather than this being painless, his death is slow and agonizing. Investigations show the equipment used to deliver the lethal injection was tampered with and upon discovering the words "you can't fight fate" written on one of the canisters, Nick and the authorities suspect that Darby had been the culprit and they converge on his home but escapes when he receives a mysterious phone call from a unknown person warning him to flee. The unknown caller then directs him to a waiting patrol car with a sleeping officer and directs Darby to drive to a designated spot outside a warehouse. After forcing the policeman to drive there, Darby is about to shoot the policeman with his own gun but instead, he ends up incapacitated with a tetrodotoxin
via the booby-trapped gun while the unknown caller/policeman reveals himself to be Clyde, who is now a violent sociopath and was actually setting a trap for Darby.
While Darby is paralyzed, Clyde then takes him captive at the warehouse, straps him onto a table with a blood pressure system and injects him with adrenaline so he won't pass out. Then, Clyde shows Darby a picture of his wife and daughter and turns a video recorder on before he avenges their murder by slowly dismembering Darby, cutting him into 25 pieces that includes his arms and legs, his penis, his eyelids and finally his head. Finding Darby's corpse, Nick, his assistant Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb
), Detectives Dunnigan (Colm Meaney
), Garza (Michael Irby
) and the authorities realize that Clyde was behind the killings and arrest him as the chief suspect but he eventually confesses his guilt before offering a full confession in exchange for a new mattress in his cell, which Nick reluctantly agrees. Nick gets a phonecall from his wife (Regina Hall
), who tells him to come home as their daughter has accidentally watched a DVD of Clyde killing Darby. On the next day, Clyde represents himself at his hearing before Judge Laura Burch (Annie Corley
) but is appalled when he is granted bail
and lashes out at her over this and instead, he is held in a contempt of court
.
Granted his mattress, Clyde confesses both to murdering Darby and to switching the drugs used in Rupert's execution. He next demands a meal consisting of pasta, asparagus and a porterhouse steak, along with his iPod, by exactly 01:00pm the next day in exchange for revealing the location of Clarence's missing attorney (Richard Portnow
). Due to the warden's (Gregory Itzin
) multiple checks, Clyde receives his meal at 1:08pm, as a result, the detectives arrive too late to save the attorney, who had been buried alive with a limited air supply. Meanwhile, Clyde murders his cellmate with the bone from his porterhouse steak and is sent to solitary confinement
as a result. Nick confronts Clyde about the killing and questions whether his wife and daughter will feel good about him killing in their name but it backfires when Clyde insists that because they're dead, they can't feel anything.
Sarah finds evidence connecting Clyde with the Department of Defense
. Nick and District Attorney
Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill
) learn from a CIA
contact (Michael Kelly
) that Clyde was a technical genius who facilitated assassinations, a brilliant strategist specializing in eliminating targets through unconventional means without being within the target's vicinity (one of his devices was a flechette/necktie design that was made with carbon fiber
and choked a terrorist to death). After Judge Burch is killed by an exploding cellphone set up by Clyde, he and Nick engage in a war of words while it turns out that rather than the killings being for revenge, it is actually for the failure of the justice system. In exchange for showing Nick how he is killing the key players that were in Darby's trial, Clyde declares that unless he is cleared of all charges and released by the next morning at 06:00am, he will "kill everyone". When his demands are not met, five members of the staff and Sarah are killed by bombs planted within their cars' gas tanks soon after 06:00am but investigators find Nick's car has not been tampered with. Meanwhile, the mayor (Viola Davis
), alarmed at the deaths of the district attorney staff, assigns protection details to Nick and Jonas. After meeting with the mayor and getting his family to safety, Nick confronts Clyde about the killings and tells him if he had tried to convict Darby for murder, he and Ames would both go free. Clyde says that Nick didn't even try to help Clyde's case. Clyde also says if Nick had tried and failed to convict Darby, he would have accepted his honest loss. Nick and Jonas later attend Sarah's funeral. While leaving the cemetery their convoy is ambushed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot, killing Jonas.
The already irate mayor meets with Nick who offers to resign, but the mayor refuses to accept his resignation and instead appoints him as the acting District Attorney. Nick receives information from Sarah's boyfriend Chester (Sarah had traced Clyde's property purchases), leading to a garage owned by Clyde next to the prison, where he and Dunnigan discover a tunnel leading to the solitary confinement cells along with surveillance equipment, weapons, and disguises. They realize that Clyde tunneled into the prison during the ten years prior to his arrest, and deliberately had himself sent to solitary confinement so that he could come and go and commit his string of killings while the authorities believed him to be locked up. Clyde's plans indicate that he has gone to Philadelphia City Hall
. Disguised as a janitor, he places a cellphone-activated suitcase bomb in the city hall with the intention of assassinating the mayor during a security meeting with city officials. Nick rushes to city hall and finds the bomb but the bomb disposal specialist is unable to disarm it, and they cannot evacuate the building for fear that Clyde is watching.
Meanwhile, Clyde returns to his cell via his tunnel and finds Nick waiting for him. He questions whether Nick wants to make one last deal, but having finally begun to understand what Clyde has been trying to teach him, Nick reveals that he doesn't make deals with murderers anymore. Clyde exults at having finally changed Nick's ways. Nick cautions him against activating the bomb, but Clyde does so anyway. Nick seals the cell door and flees the building while Dunnigan seals the hatch to the tunnel. Clyde then realizes that they have placed the bomb under his bed and locked it with handcuffs but he sits staring at the bracelet given to him by his daughter before the bomb detonates, killing him while Nick walks away.
In the end, Nick and his wife watch their daughter perform on stage.
Butler and his production company developed the film. For the two years of planning, Butler planned to play Nick Rice. At the last minute he decided that it would be interesting to take on the role of Clyde. Since Jamie Foxx was already signed on to play Clyde, he asked if he would mind switching roles. Foxx loved his performance in 300 and thought that as a viewer he would love seeing Gerard "beating people and blowing stuff up". Butler said that having Foxx and himself switch roles would be "awesome".
to Law Abiding Citizen was composed by Brian Tyler
, who recorded his score with a 52-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony
at the Sony Scoring Stage with help from Kieron Charlesworth. The movie also uses "Eminence Front
" by The Who
and "Engine No. 9" by Deftones
on Clyde's iPod while he is eating his steak in his cell. While Clyde calls Darby to help him 'escape' the police after Ames' execution, "Bloodline" by Slayer
is Darby's ringer.
The tune at the end for closing credits is "Sin's A Good Man's Brother" by Grand Funk Railroad
.
.
The premiere was held on November 15, 2009 at the Cineworld
complex in Glasgow
- hometown of Gerard Butler. Many British tabloids have labeled this event as the "Homecoming Premiere", in reference to the Homecoming Scotland celebrations.
. It went on to gross $126.6 million total worldwide.
Law Abiding Citizen received mostly negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes
reported that 25% of critics gave positive reviews based on 131 reviews with an average score of 4.4/10. The film was well-received by casual viewers, though, earning a 77% positive review on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 3.5/5 star user rating on Amazon.com. Another review aggregator, Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized rating based on 100 reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 34% based on 26 reviews. One notable exception was Roger Ebert
. In his review for the Chicago Sun Times, Ebert said,"Law Abiding Citizen is the kind of movie you will like more at the time than in retrospect." He then went on to say, "Still, there's something to be said for a movie you like well enough at the time." Ebert rated the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars.
F. Gary Gray
Felix Gary Gray is an American music video and film director.-Life and career:Gray began his career in 1992 with his music video for Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day." The video, a literal adaptation of the lyrics, was critically well received. He would go on to direct subsequent videos for Ice Cube,...
from a screenplay written by Kurt Wimmer
Kurt Wimmer
Kurt Wimmer is an American screenwriter and film director.Wimmer is of German descent, he attended the University of South Florida and graduated with a BFA degree in Art History. He then moved to Los Angeles where he worked for 12 years as a screenwriter before making his 2002 film, Equilibrium...
, starring Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
and Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
. The film takes place in Philadelphia and tells the story of a man whose developed sociopathic tendencies drove him into killing while targeting not only his family's killer but also the criminal justice
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...
system. Law Abiding Citizen was released theatrically in North America on October 16, 2009.
The film was nominated for a Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
as the Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film of the year, and the film also garnered NAACP Image Awards nominations for both Jamie Foxx (Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture) and F. Gary Gray (Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture).
Plot
During a violent home invasion, Clyde Shelton (Gerard ButlerGerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
), an engineer, witnesses the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte
Christian Stolte
Christian Stolte is an American actor. He played corrections officer Keith Stolte on the show Prison Break and Charles Makley on Public Enemies. He also plays Clarence Darby in the movie Law Abiding Citizen.-External links:...
). During their trial, prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
) informs Clyde that the case against Darby is weak due to botched forensic evidence and that Clyde's testimony alone is insufficient to prove either suspect's guilt. Nick, against his own will, is forced to strike a deal, which is that Darby will give testimony that will send Darby's accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart
Josh Stewart
Joshua Regnall Stewart is an American actor best known for his role as Holt McLaren in the FX TV series Dirt. He was also cast as Brendan Finney in the final season of the NBC TV series Third Watch.-Early life:...
) to death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
and in exchange, he pleads guilty to third-degree murder, for which he will only serve three years in prison. Knowing that Darby is the actual killer, Clyde is left feeling betrayed by both Nick and the justice system.
Ten years later, Rupert tries to maintain his innocence but is executed by lethal injection
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
, although rather than this being painless, his death is slow and agonizing. Investigations show the equipment used to deliver the lethal injection was tampered with and upon discovering the words "you can't fight fate" written on one of the canisters, Nick and the authorities suspect that Darby had been the culprit and they converge on his home but escapes when he receives a mysterious phone call from a unknown person warning him to flee. The unknown caller then directs him to a waiting patrol car with a sleeping officer and directs Darby to drive to a designated spot outside a warehouse. After forcing the policeman to drive there, Darby is about to shoot the policeman with his own gun but instead, he ends up incapacitated with a tetrodotoxin
Tetrodotoxin
Tetrodotoxin, also known as "tetrodox" and frequently abbreviated as TTX, sometimes colloquially referred to as "zombie powder" by those who practice Vodou, is a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote. There have been successful tests of a possible antidote in mice, but further tests must be...
via the booby-trapped gun while the unknown caller/policeman reveals himself to be Clyde, who is now a violent sociopath and was actually setting a trap for Darby.
While Darby is paralyzed, Clyde then takes him captive at the warehouse, straps him onto a table with a blood pressure system and injects him with adrenaline so he won't pass out. Then, Clyde shows Darby a picture of his wife and daughter and turns a video recorder on before he avenges their murder by slowly dismembering Darby, cutting him into 25 pieces that includes his arms and legs, his penis, his eyelids and finally his head. Finding Darby's corpse, Nick, his assistant Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb
Leslie Bibb
Leslie Louise Bibb is an American actress and former fashion model. She transitioned into film and television in late 1990s. She appeared in television shows such as Home Improvement , before she appeared in her first film, the comedy Private Parts , which was followed by her first show The Big Easy...
), Detectives Dunnigan (Colm Meaney
Colm Meaney
Colm J. Meaney is an Irish actor widely known for playing Miles O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is second only to Michael Dorn in most appearances in Star Trek episodes. He has guest-starred on many TV shows from Law & Order to The Simpsons...
), Garza (Michael Irby
Michael Irby
Michael Clinton Irby is an American film and television actor. He is known for portraying Sergeant First Class Charles Grey in The Unit.-Personal life:...
) and the authorities realize that Clyde was behind the killings and arrest him as the chief suspect but he eventually confesses his guilt before offering a full confession in exchange for a new mattress in his cell, which Nick reluctantly agrees. Nick gets a phonecall from his wife (Regina Hall
Regina Hall
Regina Hall is an American film and television actress known for her lead role of Brenda Meeks in the Scary Movie films and as Corretta Lipp in the FOX comedy-drama Ally McBeal.-Personal life:...
), who tells him to come home as their daughter has accidentally watched a DVD of Clyde killing Darby. On the next day, Clyde represents himself at his hearing before Judge Laura Burch (Annie Corley
Annie Corley
Annie Corley is an American actress who has appeared in a wide variety of films and television shows since 1990. Her most notable role to date was playing Meryl Streep's daughter in the film The Bridges of Madison County....
) but is appalled when he is granted bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
and lashes out at her over this and instead, he is held in a contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
.
Granted his mattress, Clyde confesses both to murdering Darby and to switching the drugs used in Rupert's execution. He next demands a meal consisting of pasta, asparagus and a porterhouse steak, along with his iPod, by exactly 01:00pm the next day in exchange for revealing the location of Clarence's missing attorney (Richard Portnow
Richard Portnow
Richard Portnow is an American actor known for such films and television shows as Barton Fink, Se7en, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Spirit, Law Abiding Citizen, Private Parts, Fallen Arches, Double Down, Spring Break '83, The Sopranos, Hannah Montana and Boston Legal.-Life and career:A...
). Due to the warden's (Gregory Itzin
Gregory Itzin
Gregory Martin Itzin is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as disgraced U.S. President Charles Logan in the television series 24.-Early life:...
) multiple checks, Clyde receives his meal at 1:08pm, as a result, the detectives arrive too late to save the attorney, who had been buried alive with a limited air supply. Meanwhile, Clyde murders his cellmate with the bone from his porterhouse steak and is sent to solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
as a result. Nick confronts Clyde about the killing and questions whether his wife and daughter will feel good about him killing in their name but it backfires when Clyde insists that because they're dead, they can't feel anything.
Sarah finds evidence connecting Clyde with the Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
. Nick and District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill
Bruce McGill
Bruce Travis McGill is an American actor who has an extensive list of credits in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Dalton on the television series MacGyver and as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day in National Lampoon's Animal House.-Early life:McGill was born in San...
) learn from a CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
contact (Michael Kelly
Michael Kelly (American actor)
Michael Joseph Kelly is an American actor.-Early life:Kelly was born in Philadelphia and raised in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the son of Maureen and Michael Kelly. He has one brother and two sisters . He graduated from Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia...
) that Clyde was a technical genius who facilitated assassinations, a brilliant strategist specializing in eliminating targets through unconventional means without being within the target's vicinity (one of his devices was a flechette/necktie design that was made with carbon fiber
Carbon fiber
Carbon fiber, alternatively graphite fiber, carbon graphite or CF, is a material consisting of fibers about 5–10 μm in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber...
and choked a terrorist to death). After Judge Burch is killed by an exploding cellphone set up by Clyde, he and Nick engage in a war of words while it turns out that rather than the killings being for revenge, it is actually for the failure of the justice system. In exchange for showing Nick how he is killing the key players that were in Darby's trial, Clyde declares that unless he is cleared of all charges and released by the next morning at 06:00am, he will "kill everyone". When his demands are not met, five members of the staff and Sarah are killed by bombs planted within their cars' gas tanks soon after 06:00am but investigators find Nick's car has not been tampered with. Meanwhile, the mayor (Viola Davis
Viola Davis
Viola Davis is an American actress.Known primarily as a stage actress, Davis won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for her role in King Hedley II . She won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her role in the...
), alarmed at the deaths of the district attorney staff, assigns protection details to Nick and Jonas. After meeting with the mayor and getting his family to safety, Nick confronts Clyde about the killings and tells him if he had tried to convict Darby for murder, he and Ames would both go free. Clyde says that Nick didn't even try to help Clyde's case. Clyde also says if Nick had tried and failed to convict Darby, he would have accepted his honest loss. Nick and Jonas later attend Sarah's funeral. While leaving the cemetery their convoy is ambushed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot, killing Jonas.
The already irate mayor meets with Nick who offers to resign, but the mayor refuses to accept his resignation and instead appoints him as the acting District Attorney. Nick receives information from Sarah's boyfriend Chester (Sarah had traced Clyde's property purchases), leading to a garage owned by Clyde next to the prison, where he and Dunnigan discover a tunnel leading to the solitary confinement cells along with surveillance equipment, weapons, and disguises. They realize that Clyde tunneled into the prison during the ten years prior to his arrest, and deliberately had himself sent to solitary confinement so that he could come and go and commit his string of killings while the authorities believed him to be locked up. Clyde's plans indicate that he has gone to Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall is the house of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At , including the statue, it is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin...
. Disguised as a janitor, he places a cellphone-activated suitcase bomb in the city hall with the intention of assassinating the mayor during a security meeting with city officials. Nick rushes to city hall and finds the bomb but the bomb disposal specialist is unable to disarm it, and they cannot evacuate the building for fear that Clyde is watching.
Meanwhile, Clyde returns to his cell via his tunnel and finds Nick waiting for him. He questions whether Nick wants to make one last deal, but having finally begun to understand what Clyde has been trying to teach him, Nick reveals that he doesn't make deals with murderers anymore. Clyde exults at having finally changed Nick's ways. Nick cautions him against activating the bomb, but Clyde does so anyway. Nick seals the cell door and flees the building while Dunnigan seals the hatch to the tunnel. Clyde then realizes that they have placed the bomb under his bed and locked it with handcuffs but he sits staring at the bracelet given to him by his daughter before the bomb detonates, killing him while Nick walks away.
In the end, Nick and his wife watch their daughter perform on stage.
Cast
- Jamie FoxxJamie FoxxEric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
as Nick Rice - Gerard ButlerGerard ButlerGerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
as Clyde Shelton - Colm MeaneyColm MeaneyColm J. Meaney is an Irish actor widely known for playing Miles O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is second only to Michael Dorn in most appearances in Star Trek episodes. He has guest-starred on many TV shows from Law & Order to The Simpsons...
as Detective Dunnigan - Bruce McGillBruce McGillBruce Travis McGill is an American actor who has an extensive list of credits in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Dalton on the television series MacGyver and as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day in National Lampoon's Animal House.-Early life:McGill was born in San...
as Jonas Cantrell - Leslie BibbLeslie BibbLeslie Louise Bibb is an American actress and former fashion model. She transitioned into film and television in late 1990s. She appeared in television shows such as Home Improvement , before she appeared in her first film, the comedy Private Parts , which was followed by her first show The Big Easy...
as Sarah Lowell - Michael IrbyMichael IrbyMichael Clinton Irby is an American film and television actor. He is known for portraying Sergeant First Class Charles Grey in The Unit.-Personal life:...
as Detective Garza - Gregory ItzinGregory ItzinGregory Martin Itzin is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as disgraced U.S. President Charles Logan in the television series 24.-Early life:...
as Warden Inger - Regina HallRegina HallRegina Hall is an American film and television actress known for her lead role of Brenda Meeks in the Scary Movie films and as Corretta Lipp in the FOX comedy-drama Ally McBeal.-Personal life:...
as Kelly Rice - Emerald-Angel Young as Denise Rice
- Christian StolteChristian StolteChristian Stolte is an American actor. He played corrections officer Keith Stolte on the show Prison Break and Charles Makley on Public Enemies. He also plays Clarence Darby in the movie Law Abiding Citizen.-External links:...
as Clarence J. Darby - Annie CorleyAnnie CorleyAnnie Corley is an American actress who has appeared in a wide variety of films and television shows since 1990. Her most notable role to date was playing Meryl Streep's daughter in the film The Bridges of Madison County....
as Judge Laura Burch - Richard PortnowRichard PortnowRichard Portnow is an American actor known for such films and television shows as Barton Fink, Se7en, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Spirit, Law Abiding Citizen, Private Parts, Fallen Arches, Double Down, Spring Break '83, The Sopranos, Hannah Montana and Boston Legal.-Life and career:A...
as Bill Reynolds - Viola DavisViola DavisViola Davis is an American actress.Known primarily as a stage actress, Davis won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for her role in King Hedley II . She won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her role in the...
as Mayor April Henry - Michael KellyMichael Kelly (American actor)Michael Joseph Kelly is an American actor.-Early life:Kelly was born in Philadelphia and raised in Lawrenceville, Georgia, the son of Maureen and Michael Kelly. He has one brother and two sisters . He graduated from Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia...
as Bray - Josh StewartJosh StewartJoshua Regnall Stewart is an American actor best known for his role as Holt McLaren in the FX TV series Dirt. He was also cast as Brendan Finney in the final season of the NBC TV series Third Watch.-Early life:...
as Rupert Ames - Roger BartRoger BartRoger Bart is an American actor and singer.-Life and career:Bart was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the son of a teacher and a chemical engineer, and grew up in Bernardsville, New Jersey. His uncle is journalist Peter Bart. He made his Broadway debut in Big River as Tom Sawyer in 1987...
as Brian Bringham - Dan Bittner as Serneo
- Evan Hart as Collins
- Reno Laquintano as Dwight Dixon
- Steven Carroll as robot driver
Production
Filming began in August 2008 and took place in and around Philadelphia. Filming locations included Philadelphia's City Hall and the old holmsburg prison.Butler and his production company developed the film. For the two years of planning, Butler planned to play Nick Rice. At the last minute he decided that it would be interesting to take on the role of Clyde. Since Jamie Foxx was already signed on to play Clyde, he asked if he would mind switching roles. Foxx loved his performance in 300 and thought that as a viewer he would love seeing Gerard "beating people and blowing stuff up". Butler said that having Foxx and himself switch roles would be "awesome".
Music
The scoreLaw Abiding Citizen (soundtrack)
Law Abiding Citizen is the original motion picture soundtrack for the 2009 film Law Abiding Citizen. IT features original music by award winning composer Brian Tyler and was made available on Downtown Soundtracks, a division of Downtown Music LLC, onOctober 13, 2009.Recorded at Sony Scoring Stage...
to Law Abiding Citizen was composed by Brian Tyler
Brian Tyler (composer)
Brian Tyler is an American composer, producer, conductor, and film producer most known for his scores of Eagle Eye, The Expendables, Battle: Los Angeles, The Final Destination, Rambo, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, and Final Destination 5. Tyler is a symphonic conductor and conducts his own scores....
, who recorded his score with a 52-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony
Hollywood Studio Symphony
The Hollywood Studio Symphony is the credited name of the symphony orchestra behind many major soundtracks, including The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Sucker Punch, Jurassic Park 3, Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean, We Are Marshall, Spider-Man 2, Lost and The...
at the Sony Scoring Stage with help from Kieron Charlesworth. The movie also uses "Eminence Front
Eminence Front
"Eminence Front" is a song written and sung by Pete Townshend of The Who. It appears as the sixth track on the group's 1982 studio album, It's Hard. The single reached #68 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is the only song from the album that the band has opted to play live after the initial...
" by The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
and "Engine No. 9" by Deftones
Deftones
Deftones are an American alternative metal band from Sacramento, California, founded in 1988. The band consists of Chino Moreno , Stephen Carpenter , Chi Cheng , Frank Delgado , and Abe Cunningham . Currently Sergio Vega is standing in on bass while Cheng recovers from a car accident...
on Clyde's iPod while he is eating his steak in his cell. While Clyde calls Darby to help him 'escape' the police after Ames' execution, "Bloodline" by Slayer
Slayer
Slayer is an American thrash metal band formed in Huntington Park, California, in 1981 by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, and is credited as one of the "Big Four" thrash metal acts, along with Metallica, Megadeth and...
is Darby's ringer.
The tune at the end for closing credits is "Sin's A Good Man's Brother" by Grand Funk Railroad
Grand Funk Railroad
Grand Funk Railroad is an American rock band that was highly popular during the 1970s. Grand Funk Railroad toured constantly to packed arenas worldwide. A popular take on the band during its heyday was that, although the critics hated them, audiences loved them...
.
Release
The film was released theatrically on October 16, 2009. The first theatrical trailer was released on August 14, 2009 and was attached to District 9District 9
District 9 is a 2009 South African science fiction thriller film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It was written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James...
.
The premiere was held on November 15, 2009 at the Cineworld
Cineworld
Cineworld Group plc is a cinema chain operating in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Jersey. The chain consists of 78 cinemas; 76 of which are located in the UK and one each in Ireland and Jersey. It is the second-largest cinema operator in the UK with 801 screens, and the owner of...
complex in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
- hometown of Gerard Butler. Many British tabloids have labeled this event as the "Homecoming Premiere", in reference to the Homecoming Scotland celebrations.
Reception
The film took second place in its opening weekend, with $21,039,502, behind Where the Wild Things AreWhere the Wild Things Are (film)
Where the Wild Things Are is a 2009 American fantasy drama film directed by Spike Jonze and adapted from Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's book Where the Wild Things Are. It combines live action, performers in costumes, animatronics, and computer-generated imagery...
. It went on to gross $126.6 million total worldwide.
Law Abiding Citizen received mostly negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 25% of critics gave positive reviews based on 131 reviews with an average score of 4.4/10. The film was well-received by casual viewers, though, earning a 77% positive review on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 3.5/5 star user rating on Amazon.com. Another review aggregator, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized rating based on 100 reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 34% based on 26 reviews. One notable exception was Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
. In his review for the Chicago Sun Times, Ebert said,"Law Abiding Citizen is the kind of movie you will like more at the time than in retrospect." He then went on to say, "Still, there's something to be said for a movie you like well enough at the time." Ebert rated the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars.