It's basically Saw with Gerard Butler as Jigsaw, which means he's as righteous of body as he is of mind.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 6, 2021

There were surprises, twists and turns and could get graphic at times, but overall the movie was fast-paced, well performed, and kept your attention until the very end.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 12, 2017

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.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 30, 2010

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''.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 28, 2010

Bloodshed and torture abound in this sadistic thriller with pretensions.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jan 26, 2010

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.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 27, 2009

Relentlessly ugly, preposterous and hackneyed of dialogue: guilty on all counts. It will do well, then.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 27, 2009

Sadly, there's nothing here but bloody off-cuts from 'Death Wish', 'Saw' and 'The Silence of the Lambs', in roughly that order.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 27, 2009

Full of incoherent, spitting rage, ignorant, paranoid violence and a complete lack of internal logic.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 27, 2009

It's silly and nasty at the same time: not a good combination.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 27, 2009

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?

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 27, 2009

The film doesn't take itself too seriously and there are enough cool deaths and thrills to entertain despite the ridiculous premise.

Full Review | Nov 27, 2009

When reality melts and major US cities become porous, we need some of the mad panache recently demonstrated by Roland Emmerich in 2012.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 27, 2009

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.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 27, 2009

If you want a crazy mix of Saw and Shawshank, where a lot of people get killed in nasty ways and Gerard Butler gets his bum out, then this is a decent bet.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 27, 2009

So blatantly nonsensical that the action quickly tips over into campiness.

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 26, 2009

As a social statement, Law Abiding Citizen is a flawed attempt at holding the legal system accountable for its shortcomings. As a movie, it's a ridiculous execution of a misguided concept.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 21, 2009

There's the core of a fascinating amoral movie here before it gets amped up into a standard thriller

| Original Score: C | Oct 19, 2009

An illogical, campy joke of a movie that suffers hugely in comparison to F. Gary Gray's earlier ****-the-injustice-system thriller The Negotiator.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Oct 16, 2009

It is a nasty and morally bankrupt piece of work, true, but it is also incredibly entertaining, and as far guilty pleasures go I think this might be at the top of my 2009 list.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 16, 2009