Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free.

Director:

F. Gary Gray

Writer:

Kurt Wimmer

Stars:

Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Leslie Bibb

3 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jamie Foxx	...	Nick Rice
Gerard Butler	...	Clyde Shelton
Colm Meaney	...	Detective Dunnigan
Bruce McGill	...	Jonas Cantrell
Leslie Bibb	...	Sarah Lowell
Michael Irby	...	Detective Garza
Gregory Itzin	...	Warden Iger
Regina Hall	...	Kelly Rice
Emerald-Angel Young	...	Denise Rice (as Emerald Angel Young)
Christian Stolte	...	Clarence Darby
Annie Corley	...	Judge Laura Burch
Richard Portnow	...	Bill Reynolds
Viola Davis	...	Mayor
Michael Kelly	...	Bray
Josh Stewart	...	Rupert Ames (as Joshua Stewart)

Storyline

Clyde Shelton's family is brutally murdered. The ones responsible are caught. However, because of improper procedure, the D.A., Nick Rice only has circumstantial evidence. So he decides to get one of them to testify against the other. When Shelton learns of this, he is not happy. Ten years later, the one who was convicted is being executed but something goes wrong; his execution goes awry and he suffers. They learn that someone tampered with the machine. And the other one is found dead, killed in a gruesome manner. Rice suspects Shelton, so he has him picked up. At first, Shelton agrees to a plea agreement with Rice but changes his mind. It appears that Shelton is not done, it appears he blames the whole system and is declaring war on it going after everyone involved with his family's case. So Rice has to stop him but Shelton is way ahead of him.

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Plot Keywords:

justice | terrorism | deal | investigation | criminal mastermind | 

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Taglines:

How do you stop a killer who is already behind bars?

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong bloody brutal violence and torture, a scene of rape, and pervasive language

Did You Know?

Trivia

Director F. Gary Gray decided to use Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse as the restaurant that caters Clyde's lunch after dining there several times during filming. The restaurant was also the location of the film's after-party following its screening at the Philadelphia Film Festival.

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Goofs

The CCTV camera (an old CTC-5000) shown observing Clyde in the prison interview 'bird cage' has no cable connected the only video output socket. In a later scene of the same place, the same type of camera shows a red LED stuck to the side of the camera in a small black box facing forward. That camera's power LED is mounted on the rear panel.

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Quotes

Sarah Lowell: [Over the phone] We can't put Clyde Shelton anywhere. Not in a job, not in the city and not even in the country, so I dug a little deeper and I found something from his missing years. A couple of contract payments to Clyde from Department of Defense.
Nick Rice: And his real estate?
Sarah Lowell: He bought nine properties under his own name. Then he transferred them to some corporation in Panama. We can't get to the addresses because a lack of reciprocities is our problem, so we'll circle back to the farmhouse.
Nick Rice: That's a ...
[...]

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Alternate Versions

Two versions of the film exist: theatrical and unrated. The theatrical version is 109 minutes long while the unrated cut released on Blu-ray is 118 minutes long, adding several violent moments that were removed from the theatrical cut to avoid an NC-17 rating. It also features alternate shots and some extra footage.

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Connections

Featured in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Episode #20.2 (2011)

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Soundtracks

Bloodline
Written by Tom Araya (as Tomas Araya), Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman
Performed by Slayer
Courtesy of American Recordings, a unit of Sony Music Entertainment
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User Reviews

A morality tale with plenty of action

This is a movie that's extremely fun to watch in the theaters because you get to hear and see everyone's reaction to each of his killings. The best one had people actually saying loudly "wow" and "oh my god!".

What drew me to the movie was the fact that the hero wasn't going around killing people with his bare hands or face to face. He was doing it with his mind, with careful planning, and deft precision. That was something refreshing to see. I can totally relate to his feelings of anger over the flaws in the justice system and his desire to take matters into his own hands - to make things right.

The ending was disappointing but the rest of the film was not and I liked it overall.

Details

Official Sites:

Constantin Film [Germany] Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 October 2009 (USA)

Also Known As:

Law Abiding Citizen

Filming Locations:

Girard Point, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$21,039,502, 18 October 2009

Gross USA:

$73,357,727

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$127,944,208

Company Credits

Production Co:

G-BASE, The Film Department, Warp Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min 118 min (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS Dolby Atmos

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1