Netflix Just Added A Criminally Underrated Thriller (With a Legendary Downer Ending You Can’t Ignore)

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Released in 2009, Law Abiding Citizen is, perhaps, Butler’s most violent film. He plays Clyde Shelton, an engineer who is forced to watch the brutal assault and murder of his wife and daughter. However, when the system fails him after the killer is given a plea deal, Clyde takes matters into his own hands to get revenge and the justice he feels was denied. In addition to Butler, the film stars Jamie Foxx, Viola Davis, Regina Hall, and more. Critics found the film to be needlessly violent and to have a convoluted and unrealistic plot, but viewers disagreed. They loved the film for its often-unpredictable action and twists as well as Butler’s and Foxx’s gripping, complex performances as a wronged victim and the prosecutor who wronged him.

Law Abiding Citizen Is a Fascinating Commentary on the Nature of Justice And a Flawed System

While Law Abiding Citizen shares a lot of the same elements of many action thrillers — namely, graphic violence and some truly intense scenes as the story’s protagonist seeks their form of justice, what sets this film apart is that there are no true heroes and no true villains. Butler’s Clyde is given a sense of ambiguity, given that his increasingly antagonistic actions come from a place of unspeakable trauma and having truly been wronged, something that makes him as much a victim of a flawed system as it does an antagonist. In that same vein, Foxx’s Prosecutor Nick Rice fits in a similarly gray area. While he initially cares more about conviction rates than actual justice, that perspective changes as Clyde’s acts of revenge escalate and reveal the issues in an idea of justice that cares more about numbers than truly balancing the scales.

By centering an otherwise somewhat typical revenge fantasy action thriller plot around two complex people, both of whom are ultimately making choices in the name of their loved ones, Law Abiding Citizen prompts a lot of thought and questions about what justice really means and how far one would go to get it. It’s more than just your average action film, and that’s part of why it remains a favorite.

Law Abiding Citizen is now streaming on Netflix.

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