Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

Directed by: F. Gary Gray (or is it F. Gray Gary? or F. Gary Graybraham?)
Starring: SPARTA!, Ray Charles and Chief O'Brien


I'd already heard that this was a very bad film, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It was far fucking worse than that. Imagine, if you will, a story cobbled together with shit and semen, hammered through a collander with a big fucking mallet when the convex head of a spoon would have sufficed, processed with offal and stale piss, covered with pastry, baked for two hours and then retrofitted with vomit and then muddied with a thousand lonely suicides.

Well, that's more appetising than this. Seriously, this film spends nearly two hours believing that is something it was never going to be. It quickly shot it's own moral load over its self-righteous face screaming "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!! There's a message here, a serious message about the American justice system...." and then quickly forgets that message while wiping its cock down in your face and secretly laughing at you.

Basically, Sparta is a family man that one night gets attacked by some petty crooks (not wearing balaclavas I might add) - one of these petty crooks decides that rather than just make off with some valuables that it would be a good idea to murder Sparta's wife and young daughter and leave Sparta for dead. As you do. Okay, so there's no film if this doesn't happen so I'm prepared to roll with it....

....and roll is what one of the crooks does when caught. Ray Charles is the prosecutor who has to break the news to Sparta that because of some fuck up with evidence and the fact that Sparta had passed out that his statement wasn't valid - the guy that did the killing is rolling over on the other guy to get a plea bargain whilst the other poor schmuck gets sent to death row. Sparta is mortified, but Ray tells him it's the only way they are guaranteed to get them both in jail as the case would probably collapse otherwise.

So, on we go. 10 years later, the day of the execution and Ray is there to watch it. Ad then something goes horribly wrong - instead of killing the guy easily it seriously fucks him up painfully before killing him. Oh I wonder who arranged that? Sparta then proceeds to help the other crook (who is now a free man snorting coke and screwing cheap hookers) escape the "three strikes you're out" rule as the cops come to his apartment. Well, help escape so he can torture him to death whilst filming it whilst speaking in Latin and doing a Cossack dance.

Anyway, they have no difficulty finding Sparta, who decides to strip naked prior to his arrest for some reason (six-pack quotient?). And then the "fun" begins. In the 10 years since the initial incident it seems that Sparta! has become an expert on law, bought shit loads of property and learnt how to make a perfect meringue in his mouth. Basically, he wanted to be caught so he could then orchestrate his masterplan.

And what is his masterplan? Well, here goes:

• Get a mattress for a confession
• Says the title of the film
• Get a steak for a second confession of where the defence attorney for the crooks is buried alive
• Oops, steak arrived too late and the guy is dead....
• Kills cellmate
• Gets sent to solitary
• Watch as everyone is helpless whilst anyone that had anything to do with the apparent injustice 10 years ago is picked off one by one. Except Ray Charles. Maybe because he's a family man.

No one knows how this shit is happening, but right out of the fucking middle of nowhere it turns out via a CIA type that Sparta is actually some really fucking brilliant assassin type guy that can kill people without being anywhere near them. Like being in the basement of a prison somehow arranging a bullet through the head of a judge, four car bombs and directing a performance of South Pacific by the cast of Cheers WHO AREN'T EVEN IN THE FUCKING FILM!!

And then they throw in a red herring accomplice - not once, but fucking twice. Once by making you think that perhaps he is the mysterious "Chester" the boyfriend of the a girl working for Ray Charles that no one has ever met. That one is put to bed when he blows up her car. And then the black gloved accomplice that massacres more people at the funeral for the bomb victims.

Of course, the accomplice back door would be too weird now as everyone is seemingly accounted for or fucking dead by this point so they'd have to invent a person out of thin air to fill that role. I think I would have preferred this route, especially if they'd recruited Rutger Hauer or Malcolm McDowell. Or Paul Reubens. Now that would have been awesome. In fact, everything else would have been awesome.

Turns out that in the 10 years between the trial and execution that he bought a warehouse next to the prison and FUCKING TUNNELED INTO THE PRISON! Or every solitary cell to be precise. He's stocked up the tunnel with all manner of uniforms and equipment and right at the moment that Ray Charles and Chief O'Brien find this little treasure trove of potential destruction, Sparta is at City Hall planting a bomb that is going to wipe out the mayor and all the chiefs of police.....THAT PROBABLY WEREN'T EVEN IN THOSE POSITIONS WHEN HE GOT HIS REVENGE BONER 10 YEARS AGO!!! Well, he's basically trying to cripple the city in revenge for the sins against justice. That's the message.

Of course, Ray and Chief O'Brien play the old switcheroo and plant the bomb in Sparta's cell before he gets back....and he falls into their trap and makes the phonecall triggering the device....and that's it, Sparta is dead and we're no better off. We've learnt nothing we don't already know from watching Law & Order, CSI and Inspector Gadget. It could easily have made a statement about criminal injustice and flaws in the legal system but it takes the torture porn route. But in reality, we're the ones being tortured by this utter piece of crap....and it's crap that you've stood in and walked into your house.

And then to have the end credits roll and to find out that Sparta was a fucking robot and the real Sparta is about to torch Ray Charles house....well, that just takes the fucking piss.

This is possibly the worst mainstream American film made by people who have made decent films in the past - F. Gary Gray was responsible for "The Negotiator", and writer Kurt Wimmer has written some enjoyable fluff like "Equilibrium". But here they just invite themselves to a wank party and get jizz everywhere they weren't supposed to.

Overall 1/10

Note: Some parts of the story description have been added after the review was written to keep in spirit with what the filmmakers did.

Addendum 1: I've just figured it out - it's a reverse "Shawshank Redemption"!!! FFS!!