Law Abiding Citizen Reviews
ComingSoon.net
Law Abiding Citizen may be the most nihilistic movie I've ever seen.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/10
Quickflix
It's exactly the kind of film the phrase 'by-the-numbers' was invented for, but like the best genre films, it acknowledges its niche and goes all out to top its predecessors.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
sbs.com.au
One of the more repugnant examples of Hollywood's cheap-thrill approach to violence, its voyeuristic brutality is matched only by its innate stupidity.
Fan The Fire
The film can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be an audience pleasing popcorn treat or a serious, political thriller. It ends up being partly both... with varying degrees of success.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
San Francisco Examiner
Putting aside the ideological posturing, this hyper-violent fantasy about a seemingly unstoppable killer who continues his murder spree behind bars delivers on its promise of an intriguing mystery, however far-fetched.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
NewsBlaze
While one man's terrorist may be another's freedom fighter, it's not quite as simple when it comes to CIA operatives and your basic serial killer. Or rather, a CIA psycho family man that might make Jack The Ripper envious.
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
The diverting garbage that is Law Abiding Citizen would be more deplorable if it were possible to take this wholly implausible film seriously.
Full Review
| Original Score: C-
smh.com.au
For large portions of Law Abiding Citizen we're not sure who is going to be the winner here, nor who we want to be, and though it won't make for much of a date flick, as far as intelligent action flicks go, it gets two big burly thumbs up.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
The Age (Australia)
While Law Abiding Citizen is in no sense a successful work of art, a film that offers the illicit thrill of cheering on an all-American terrorist is at least pursuing something more complex than ''moral clarity''.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
NewsBlaze
A high-octane, high body-count thriller posing the question, how do you stop a psycho vigilante on a killing spree? Apparently, by any means necessary."
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Sydney Morning Herald
Bloodshed and torture abound in this sadistic thriller with pretensions.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Moviedex
In another time and place, Law Abiding Citizen could have been an intelligent critique of a flawed criminal justice system. Instead, I present you Gerard Butler, ruthlessly hacking a guy into 25 little pieces.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Urban Cinefile
The screenplay mashes up its elements and develops as a hairbrained plot without enough character substanc
Cinemalogue.com
On a side note, can you believe the Oscar-winning star of RAY made a crack about Helen Keller?
Sunday Times (UK)
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Observer [UK]
[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.
Independent on Sunday
Law Abiding Citizen tries to be two kinds of exploitation film at once, and it ends up as neither.
Independent
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Empire Magazine
Relentlessly ugly, preposterous and hackneyed of dialogue: guilty on all counts. It will do well, then.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
