10 Movies That Pissed Audiences Off In The Final Scene
4. Law Abiding Citizen
Law Abiding Citizen is a ludicrously entertaining guilty pleasure movie, following a man, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), who seeks revenge on the corrupt, ineffective justice system for allowing the murderer of his wife and daughter to get away with a light sentence.
Shelton embarks on a murderous crusade against anyone involved with supporting the current legal system, culminating in him plotting to blow up City Hall as the ultimate statement of protest.
However, the film's ending turns the tables on Shelton in a most unsatisfying way.
Despite being in prison by this point in the movie, Shelton has been using a secret tunnel to continue his revenge scheme in secret, and after setting up the bomb and returning to his cell, he's greeted by his former attorney, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx).
After Nick tries to reason with him, Clyde activates the bomb, which Nick has sneakily moved into Clyde's cell, resulting in Clyde's death in an explosive fireball.
The film's final scene then shows Nick attending his daughter's musical recital, an event he previously hadn't ever made time for, seeming to suggest Nick has somehow become a better person by...blowing a criminal to pieces with his own bomb? Right.
Given that the movie does a frankly disturbing job of convincing audiences to root for Shelton, many were left deeply frustrated by an ending which flipped this on its head, suddenly taking the moral imperative through Jamie Foxx's unbearably smug "hero."
Let's be honest - most of us wanted Shelton's plan to succeed.