10 Movies That Thought They Were Smart (But Really Weren't)

9. Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen is a ludicrously entertaining revenge thriller about Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a man who targets the U.S. criminal justice system after his wife and daughter are murdered by two men. His anger stems from prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) allowing one of the two perpetrators, Darby, to cop a plea deal by testifying against his accomplice, saving himself from the death penalty and granting him a severely reduced sentence. A deeply depressed, angry Shelton gets bloody revenge on Darby early in in the film when he is released from prison, horribly dismembering him before turning his attention to Nick and his colleagues. Clyde is taken to jail for Darby's murder, where he ends up running rings around the legal system, making outrageous requests for beds and fancy meals (which are granted at the promise of him confessing to Darby's murder), and even convincing a judge to let him out on bail before mocking her for allowing him, a violent murderer, back out on the street. We then find out that Shelton has previously worked for the CIA, designing complex devices of murder, leading to several convoluted sequences in which he kills a number of Rice's colleagues in hilariously elaborate ways. As if that wasn't enough, it turns out that Shelton owns a warehouse with a tunnel that leads directly into the prison, allowing him to enter and exit freely, explaining how these murders occurred while he was apparently in jail. He finally plots to blow up city hall, but is eventually outsmarted by Rice, who leaves the bomb in Shelton's cell, killing him as the movie ends. What's truly ridiculous about Law Abiding Citizen is its serious tone: it clearly wants to be a smart, thought-provoking treatise on the darker side of the American justice system, but completely ruins this with its laughable (and damn fun) B-movie narrative, which just gets more absurd as it goes along, completely undermining that serious intent even as it massively entertains. Is there a clever movie in here waiting to get out? Absolutely, but due to its rather smug tone and contrived nature, it's best thought of as a daft revenge flick rather than anything more profound or important.