Law Abiding Citizen: Morality Tale or Morality Fail?
by: George Karounis

It’s a very interesting phenomenon among seemingly regular citizens who, after watching a film about a good guy who gets screwed by the system and then takes it upon himself to bring that system down with well organized assassinations, find themselves in a position where they are unsure of their views on the death penalty. I think that if a person’s views on the death penalty are so easily questioned as a result of a mediocre and confused Hollywood film, then I don’t take their opinions very seriously anyway.

So this movie starts with a terribly heart wrenching moment when Gerard Butler’s wife and child are brutally slaughtered after he is rendered helpless. A horrible situation under any circumstances, but added to the fact that Butler’s lawyer, played by Jamie Foxx, makes a deal with one of the killers that he would testify against the other, is a huge slap in the face to Butler’s character. As a result, one gets the death penalty while the other gets a mere three years in prison. This is made even worse, if you could imagine it, because the one who testified was the one who was in fact responsible for the murders. We are meant to feel for Gerard Butler’s character, and at the beginning of the film, we really do. This is a horrible turn of events and an unfortunate truth of the justice system.

As most of you already know, if you’ve seen any of the previews, which are swelling with abundant spoilers, Butler sets up a whole series of elaborately planned murders while in custody for a murder the authorities haven’t been able to prove he committed. Confused and terrified, Foxx and friends try and figure out how this is possible, all the while, Butler is systematically taking out everybody who was involved in the deal which was set up to reduce the sentence of the actual murderer of his family to a menial charge of murder in the third degree.

Now, for those of you who are fans of the popular show Dexter, you might be stunningly aware of the fact that this movie is nothing like that. Granted, we get a character who kills killers at the beginning, but then we quickly degenerate into a killing spree of people who were even mildly involved in, and this is the best part, not the actual murder of his family, but the law which allowed one murderer to go free at the expense of one getting the death penalty. This kills me. We are meant to feel for a guy who thinks that the lawyers, who had no other choice but to accept a deal which would guarantee at least half justice in fear of going to court on circumstantial evidence and, in all likelihood, completely losing the case, were just as guilty as the actual killers they help to put away. Oh yah, he doesn’t just go after the defence lawyers. No, that would be too prejudicial for our blood craved maniac lead character. He goes after the prosecution who accepted the deal. Somehow these people are just as guilty of murder, despite the fact that they spend their entire careers putting other murderers who they know they can convict in prison for life.

Morality tale my ass.

This movie is as much of a morality tale as Scarface. Just because these characters seem to have some semblance of an honour code by which they act, doesn’t mean that code is correct or that they’re justified at all in any of their actions. At least Scarface had the decency not to patronize its audience. They told you right from the beginning that this guy is nuts and only cares about one thing. Power. We can understand that. That’s an easy motive for us. Even if we don’t agree with it, we can relax on the basis that the movie has set out a clear idea of what it was going to be about and we are left with no other delusions.

Law Abiding Citizen, on the other hand, gets all of its morality so jumbled that even they get confused at the end as to what they’re actually trying to say. Is Butler right in what he’s doing, or is he just a cold blooded murderer? Considering Butler’s entire stance is that people need to be held accountable for their actions, it becomes rather ironic that we learn that he was in fact a hired assassin, essentially, for the government. An assassin who abandoned all codes of civil liberties, jurisprudence and constitutional rights to a fair trial to prove the guilt or innocence of the accused, and we’re supposed to feel for this character? I think that just might be the worst part of the movie. Because it’s not about an otherwise good guy who was caught in a horrible situation where he had to witness the murder of his family. It’s about a guy who was already responsible for the deaths of countless other individuals who were deemed guilty by no other authority than the government by standards that were not lawfully sanctioned. That alone should question the morality and justification this movie tries to set forth in defence of Butler’s actions as being some sort of higher noble purpose. Don’t insult my intelligence.

It’s not that I didn’t like this film because I think all movies about bad guys killing people are bad movies. On the contrary. Some of my favourite movies revolve around that premise. Se7en, The Usual Suspects and Silence of the Lambs set up characters who you know are bad people and you have no sympathy for them, but you still understand their psyches and you appreciate the films on that basis. These movies aren’t trying to create overarching moralities. They simply set out to outline the psychology of those villains.

And for those who are thinking that Law Abiding Citizen wasn’t condoning his actions, think again. When you get the main force in the movie trying to hinder Butler’s murders only to end up becoming just like him at the end, then yes, the movie is condoning those actions. The movie is blatantly telling you that righteous killings, in certain circumstances, are appropriate and well founded. I’m sorry to break it to you folks, but they’re not. Righteous killing is ancient tribal baggage that we have been fortunate enough, through the foundation of governing laws, to abolish in a magnificent way.

And for those of you out there who were against the death penalty before walking into this movie and are now unsure of your positions, then I think you need to ask yourselves a simple question. If a regular citizen doesn’t have the right to take the life of another individual, then what gives another group of citizens the right to take his?

Laws are there for a reason, and this movie fails at portraying those laws in any reasonable or truthful way. I don’t even care that I didn’t talk about the plot elements in this movie, or the cinematography, directing or production quality. This movie failed at the most basic level and that is all that matters at that point. If the movie has no redeeming story, then there is no point in watching it for anything else. Unless it’s a Roland Emmerich film, and you want to see the world get owned.