10 Movies That Are Popular For All The Wrong Reasons
4. Law Abiding Citizen
Law Abiding Citizen is a fascinating movie that, despite being mostly panned by critics, was largely embraced by general audiences.
The thriller follows Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a man who turns vigilante following the murder of his wife and daughter.
Not merely content to take the lives of those responsible, he then turns his aim towards the American justice system itself, embarking on a rampage against basically anyone complicit in upholding its corrupt practices.
Though Shelton is certainly a sympathetic figure to begin with, the filmmakers attempted to slowly transition him into a villain by the time we get to the ending, whereby the "hero," lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), turns the tables on Shelton and kills him with his own bomb.
Yet many ultimately ended up going ride-or-die with Shelton to the very end, even when he begins killing relatively unimportant folk working in the legal system who are in of themselves powerless to effect any change.
Now to be fair, Butler's deliciously righteous performance combined with the Foxx's unintentionally unlikeable hero do make it shockingly easy to root for Shelton to succeed in his ultimate plan of blowing City Hall to smithereens.
Yet it's a bit concerning that many dare to take its fundamentally schlocky throughline seriously and feel that a campaign of domestic terrorism is just what America's justice system needs in order to change its ways.
Does it need reform? Absolutely. And is Shelton's unhinged revenge plan fun to watch? For sure, yet it's scary just how many still consider him absolutely justified in his actions.