Having trawled through some truly awful films in the last 6 months, it’s been a great relief to be reminded that there are some competent people working in Holywood. Law Abiding Citizen is one of the best films to come out of 2009, and one of the best action thrillers in a long time. Jamie Foxx (The Kingdom, Miami Vice) and Gerard Bulter (most notably from 300) lead the cast in an excellently performed, cleverly written and superbly directed piece about a man named Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) who suffers a home invasion. The two burglars savagely murder his wife and young daughter and over the ensuing 10 years of red tape and court cases he plots his revenge: and revenge he does have.

Without giving too much of the storyline away, the film unfolds in a classic thriller way, akin to the subtle and intelligent twists of Inside Man, and leaves you guessing at what’s going to happen next. The plot develops the characters so well you really feel for the man you shouldn’t feel for: the one doing all the (quite frankly sick at times) revenge murdering. The other side of the film keeps in balance a lot of good action and blends this in with the unique twists, which will leave you guessing at how the next person will fall victim to Clyde’s sick plot, and indeed who the next person might be. Again it’s a little more intelligent than your average revenge film such as Death Sentence which really gives it the edge in this genre.

Clyde doesn’t just go after those that are directly responsible for the murder of his family, but also goes after the justice system that has failed him. This includes all the officers of the law who stood by and did, in his opinion, nothing to relieve his pain and anguish or to actually bring down fair justice on the murderers of his family. The main culprit here is Clyde’s attorney, Nick (Jamie Foxx), who makes a deal to get one of the burglars off with a superficial jail term in exchange for the other getting the death penalty. This, in Clyde’s mind, is truly unacceptable. Clyde falls off the radar for 10 years, and on the day of the execution of one of the burglars, he suddenly makes his presence known having been meticulously plotting his revenge in the antecedent years.

This gap in time where we, the viewer, are shown nothing of what’s happened adds to the suspense of what Clyde may have thought up as his plot unfolds. We slowly find out how much detailed research and time has gone into the plot, and also we are revealed that the plot isn’t about killing for the sake of killing. Clyde has really thought this through and there is a clever systematic and logical motive for his actions.

There’s a lot of debate that the final scene lets this film down dramatically, but if you watch the film through and fully understand Clydes’ character, you’ll realise that the ending makes complete sense. If you don’t get it just ask me for my opinion, but I’m not giving anything away in this review. Go watch it for yourself!

All in all, I have to say this is one of the best thrillers out there, and beats my previous favorites such as Inside Man and Confidence. There’s a lot of great action, storytelling, moments of suspense, comedy, and also some shocking scenes which, in a moment of disbelief, will have you rewinding the film to see if you saw things right! So I’m going to have to give this my highest yet (yes I know, out of only 4 reviews, but none have more that 1 star so far!) and award Law Abiding Citizen 9 stars out of 10; definitely worth renting or buying from your local video store.