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Law Abiding Citizen: Roy Lichtenstein should be flattered
Mar 31OK. this is the first film review I’ve posted here. Silly me; with my interests, why shouldn’t I review films? Oh, and if you care, a caution in advance. Here be spoilers. If you haven’t watched the film, and want to experience it for yourself first, you’ve been warned.
From the first scene you knew you were in for a turn-it-to-11 Shock & Roll experience. There was no hope in hell that the first five minutes of this film were going to be anything but: set-up, oh, OH, to bad, to worse, to even very badder, and then badder still, until the ultimate disgust and revulsion could possibly be intimated on the screen—these people who can do this are not just monsters, way worse than animals— they are demons. Um, I’m speaking about the characters here, right?
I thought initially that the brushes used for this high-concept venture were perhaps a little broad—did the people who green-lit this thing actually READ the script, or just have assistants (all of them under 25; never ask someone that young for advice about movies or dessert. You’ll end up with an insulin reaction and a sour taste in your mouth. And maybe cavities.) pitch them a synopsis? But then, the creators did match the treatment with the colour palette—green, grey, clays, blues, graininess, more texture than should have been necessary, especially on BlueRay—and the sound design. Thumping, heavy. For those credits junkies out there: did you catch how big the Foley team was? And that score… telegraph much? I missed the sound of the scene changes from the original Batman show.
Production design; I know you wanted to do a comic book movie, but shouldn’t someone have done some research? Just a little? And you, Mr. Scriptwriter dude—c’mon; Marcus Aurelius? Ever hear of a Triumph? Didn’t you WATCH HBO’s Rome? I did like the cinematography, but Geez. What’s a DP to do when they only want certain kinds of a look? And never, ever trust a Director with anagramatous names.
So we, oh so horrifically, establish the grievous act that provides the momentum for the plot. Cut to justice rolls a few months later, and we can see the needs for a balance & alignment due to seriously overdone boy-racer tendencies of those Marios and Michaels who lead the red stallion of Team Justice through the Steeplechase of the legal labyrinth to the goal of balance, restitution, and closure for people, society, and the survivors. OK, THAT was purple prose. Maybe Ultraviolet? <G>
If a man has a plan to make it all better later, what’s to say that the decisions he makes to get to the position of executing his grand plan won’t be the grit that prevents the execution of the final vision? And a perp that makes a deal gets to shake hands with the DA in front of cameras? I thought they already established that Jamie’s character was a real operator?
So, then we move on ten years. TEN YEARS? Like that? Wap in the face with the parallel dialogue with the kid; yep that facial fuzz on our hero really speaks about moving on and up.
Batman imagery: shadows, Gerard working on a Leonardo Da Vinci style flying machine, then slipping his clothes off for the expected appearance of the arresting officers, to strike yet another Da Vinci pose as the symbol for man. We hear from the oh so useful 5th business explaining to our hero why and how the anti-hero, the dark avenger, this unholy spawn of Bruce Wayne and The Punisher, does what he does, and that there’s really no stopping him. Supervillain/arch-vigilante? We can see the genetics mesh in the later gadgetry, Batcave allusions, smouldering near insanity, etc.
Jamie Foxx’s protégé; 10 years later and she’s still this unsure of herself? Man, in a city like Philly we are supposed to believe that this woman, lawyer, assistant prosecutor, hasn’t grown at all in a decade, and she’s still on the job? I call BS. She would have been eaten alive long before the segue was over. And what about her slapping Jamie with the Ovaries card? “I’m not going to have choice forever, and I want to know that I gave “it” up for something I can believe in.” OMG!
You may recall the totally unnecessary scene before the police confrontation, where our aggrieved proto-nemesis is fiddling with something that looks remarkably like a Da Vinci flying model, while, incidentally, the play of light across Butler’s body, and the curved framework behind him, invoked the very obvious ghost of Batman? The Dark Avenger? Well, the next obvious Da Vinci symbol for me has got to be the naked man drawing, spread-eagled inside a circle. That’s what I would bet the design was, and what was represented on the story boards. You know. Batman—Bruce Wayne—Renaissance Man—Leonardo— Get where I’m going with this? Do you think that was discussed at production & design meetings? Of course it was.
Colm Meaney, what were you doing in this film? Was the mortgage due? When you and Gerard are glaring at each other in the interrogation room, was your motivation “You Scottish bastard!” Was Gerard’s “You Irish Prick!” “Your accent’s shite!” “No, yours is shiter!”
How the bloody hell did our dramatically-dead, mooning ovaries assistant have a contact so useful as to get copies of Bruce’s… I mean Dudley’s… I mean Clyde’s… expenses!!! And then we’re going to match those expenses (Look! The Numbers Match!) to the properties Clyde’s holding company registered in Panama has acquired around the Philly area (and I thought the rest of the country, I can’t remember). Oh, and did this move the story forward, or did it just reveal how clever our anti-hero is? I forget again. Or maybe they didn’t explain that part. It’s pretty tough getting the fine lines in when your painting your movie with a 4″ edging brush.
Did you get a load of those syringes in the execution scene? You wouldn’t have had to put anything but coloured water in them to kill someone; there must have been an extra 3 litres of fluid in the guy’s blood vessels. That alone could have killed him. Nice vein effects, though. But of course, we needed the agony, the long, shocking painful screaming & writhing (pissing and shitting himself too, but perhaps over the top for our director, or maybe he just didn’t think about it?).
Jamie gets to hit somebody; wow, that’s the law for you. And the gun at the end? And the outstmarting, by Jamie & Colm? And the Judge getting killed by her own cell phone? After giving a 2-sentence synopsis of the Bush Administration’s respect for the rule of law and Jurisprudence?
Oh, I’m betting this film made money. And that makes me sad.
Tagged as: Colm Meaney, comic books, Film, Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, justice, law, Politics, Review
7 Responses to “Law Abiding Citizen: Roy Lichtenstein should be flattered”
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Nigel said on April 7th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Thanks for this little piece of fresh air. Now I know at least 2 people in the world disliked this movie.
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Greetings, I view all your posts, keep them coming.
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Eh Mr. Butler, what a man
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i love the acting skills of Gerard Butler. he is definitely a great action star.’`;
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Hi, possibly i’m being a bit off topic here, but I was browsing your site and it looks exceptional. I’m making a blog and trying to make it look clean, but everytime I touch it I mess something up. Did you design the blog yourself? Could someone with little experience do it, and add updates without messing it up? Anyways, good information on here, very informative.
yours
Scott Stiehl -
Gerard Butler is the favorite actor of my sister because he got this macho factor.”;:
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bmcraec said on August 10th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
It’s a simple WordPress blog, with standard plug-ins & themes. If you go to WordPress.org, there are online tutorials that should explain everything you need to know to get you up and running. Good luck, and thanks for posting the comment!
