On a side note, can you believe the Oscar-winning star of RAY made a crack about Helen Keller?
Comment
12/06/09
Rate this Movie 
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
24
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work
Reviews Counted:131
Fresh:32
Rotten:99
Average Rating:4.3/10
Consensus: Unnecessarily violent and unflinchingly absurd, Law Abiding Citizen is plagued by subpar acting and a story that defies reason.
Rated: R [See Full Rating]
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Oct 16, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $72,443,511
Synopsis: In LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, a prisoner's incredible reign over the city outside his cell is interrupted by an assistant district attorney. Gerard Butler (300) stars.
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Viola Davis, Bruce McGill
Director: F. Gary Gray
Get This Movie
Reviews for Law Abiding Citizen
What sours F Gary Gray’s film is the drawn-out sadism of its violence — a depressing case of torture-porn methods infecting another genre.
12/04/09
[It's] pretending to examine the nature of justice, test the parameters of law and probe the relationship between good and evil. But really it's just intent on blowing shit up.
12/04/09
Law Abiding Citizen tries to be two kinds of exploitation film at once, and it ends up as neither.
12/04/09
The film's entertainment value resides almost entirely in the ingenuity of Butler's modus operandi; but this is cancelled out by the film's underlying stupidity.
11/27/09
Relentlessly ugly, preposterous and hackneyed of dialogue: guilty on all counts. It will do well, then.
11/27/09
Sadly, there’s nothing here but bloody off-cuts from ‘Death Wish’, ‘Saw’ and ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, in roughly that order.
11/27/09
Put simply, this writer would take any number of bad movies over one nasty film. And make no mistake about it, Law Abiding Citizen is a very nasty movie indeed.
11/27/09
Full of incoherent, spitting rage, ignorant, paranoid violence and a complete lack of internal logic.
11/27/09
It's silly and nasty at the same time: not a good combination.
11/27/09
The motto of Law Abiding Citizen, endlessly repeated by Shelton, is that everyone must account for their actions. Does that apply to the people who made and star in this truly dire film?
11/27/09
The film doesn’t take itself too seriously and there are enough cool deaths and thrills to entertain despite the ridiculous premise.
11/27/09
Hollywood hokum of the tallest order. Riddled with supernova-sized plot holes and soaked in clichés, it's that rare breed of film that succeeds despite its credibility-straining premise and black and white morality.
11/27/09
Wildly implausible tosh.
11/27/09
Could have made for a decent enough B-movie renter if it had just aimed a bit lower, but the moral drum-banging only serves to throw its failings into even sharper relief.
11/27/09
Foxx is perfectly cast as the moral compass of the film, but it's Butler's edgy portrayal, walking a thin line between madness and genius, which leaves a lasting impression.
11/27/09
Arguably the most preposterous picture of the year.
11/27/09
A piece of big, brash, brains-out popcorn fodder best savoured after last orders.
11/27/09
When reality melts and major US cities become porous, we need some of the mad panache recently demonstrated by Roland Emmerich in 2012.
11/27/09
With film, the question is not always, “Do I believe it?”; more often, it is “Do they believe it?” And in the case of Law Abiding Citizen they believe it so much that revenge becomes a thing you can taste.
11/27/09
Latest News for Law Abiding Citizen
October 15, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Where the Wild Things Are Is A Wild Rumpus
This week, we've got a wild rumpus (Where the Wild Things Are, starring Max Records and Catherine Keener), a legal skirmish (Law Abiding Citizen, starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard... More...
October 14, 2009:
Five Favorite Films with F. Gary Gray
Director F. Gary Gray began his career creating music videos for several big name R&B and hip-hop artists in the early 90s, including Ice Cube, TLC, and OutKast. In 1995, Gray... More...
October 06, 2009:
Win a $300 Apple Store Gift Card from Rotten Tomatoes and F. Gary Gray
The iPhone is cool, but it's even cooler to get one for free!
You could be the lucky winner of a $300 Apple Store gift card, if you enter the Law Abiding Citizen Re-Tweet... More...
September 28, 2009:
New: Brand New Trailer/Poster. 
More...
RT On Current TV
What’s Hot On RT
Fresh Links
Featured
MSN's Year in Review
Take a look at MSN's choices for the Top 10 films of 2009.
Moviefone's Year End Poll
What were your favorites? Least favorites? The funniest and scariest? Moviefone wants to know!
Tarantino's Characters
Hollywood.com explores why QT's characters resonate so well with audiences.
Top 10 Movies of 2009
TIME chimes in with their own list of the best films released this year.
Top 20 of the Decade
Click through to see which movies BuzzSugar placed in their Best-of-Decade list!
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter
Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!
IGN RSS Feeds