Law Abiding Citizen – Dir F. Gary Gray,  starring Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Colm Meaney

Directors seemingly can’t get enough of Gerard Butler of late, and in general he’s been well worth the praise. Unfortunately for Butler, it looks like this director has relied too heavily on the quality of his actors and too little on the need for a plausible script.

Butler plays Clyde Shelton, whose life is destroyed when two robbers break into his Philadelphia home and brutally murder his wife and daughter. Assistant DA Nick Rice (Foxx) is assigned to the case and the killers are caught – but a deal is done for one of the killers to testify against his partner in return for a 10-year sentence. Clyde is not happy.

When the robber is found dead after his release from jail ten years later, Clyde is automatically suspected. In custody, he tells the DA that unless the justice system changes everyone involved in his case will die. As the threats from behind bars become a reality, the DA must somehow stop Clyde before his own family becomes the next target.

Overly sadistic and with little or no plot, the film is guilty on all counts – but mainly of trying too hard. The result is a torturous, gore-fuelled rampage with little or no logic from start to finish.