This one scene has more resonance, and intelligent argument, than the rest of the movie altogether. There’s one scene, set in the courtroom, where Gerard Butler’s character uses the flawed bail system to successfully demonstrate how stupid the legal system really is. Unfortunately, this message is very well hidden. There’s a deep message at the heart of Law Abiding Citizen, about how today’s legal system is flawed, that the people with the legal power in America don’t necessarily put the interests of the victims above their own, and asks how criminals known to be guilty are allowed freedom to re-offend over and over again. Despite being safely under lock and key, Shelton begins to wreak revenge on the justice system, and the legal wranglers he holds responsible for the injustice he suffered all those years ago. He wants to make some deals of his own with the DA, and with ten years planning behind him aims to make the stakes as high as possible. Then the defendant who was given immunity is found dead, having been tortured. Someone however intervenes, and ensures the execution is as painful as possible. Ten years later, the convicted attacker is due for execution via lethal injection. Shelton is devastated that justice has not been served, whilst Foxx considers it a job well done.
Instead, he makes a plea bargain with one of the defendants, who gives up his partner in return for immunity. Considering Shelton’s testimony to be useless, due to his blacking out during the attack, Rice doesn’t want to lose the case and risk the blot on his outstanding prosecution record. The perpetrators are caught, but when the court case comes around the district attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) doesn’t want to take it to trial. A mild mannered family man, his world is turned upside down when he is attacked, and his wife and daughter murdered during a random home invasion. In Law Abiding Citizen, another man feels compelled to do the same. He had no choice but to take the law into his own hands. His 1995 movie The Negotiator told the story of a cop who was told about a conspiracy involving several of his colleagues, and was subsequently framed in an attempt to discredit him, and hide the truth. One also that is explored in Gary F Gray’s latest movie. The legal system is in dire need of a complete overhaul.Īn extreme view, to be sure, but one that many law abiding citizens share across the country. The judges are inept, the lawyers corrupt. There are more and more cases of violence among youths, with the authorities powerless to doing anything about it.
People are being imprisoned for petty indiscretions like queue jumping and littering whilst violent criminals are allowed to go free due to technicalities, or a lack of ‘the right kind of evidence’. Innocent people, jailed twenty to thirty years ago, are now being freed based on forensic evidence re-assessed using modern techniques.
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