Your wife and child are tragically raped and killed and the killer that you saw do it is let off with a light prison sentence after making a deal with the district attorney (Jamie Foxx). What do you do?

Well if you’re Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), and you used to be an ‘ex-government killing genius’ (does such a job exist?) you orchestrate a plan for the next 10 years to get your revenge on the killers – and then everyone that was ever involved in the shoddy legal case (however tenuous their link) just to make a point on the state of the justice system.

But to prove just how good you are – and because you really want to piss off Jamie Foxx – you purposely get sent to prison and yet continue to kill people from behind bars.

Therein lies the unique selling point of this movie. How does someone kill people while locked away in prison?

Like any great magic trick, when you find out how it’s done, it’s really not that impressive any more. I won’t spoil it for you and give away how he does it, but I was really hoping there would be some clever twist.

Sadly there isn’t and I felt kind of let down once I knew how he did it.

That’s not to say this isn’t a good movie though. I really enjoyed it I just wish it was cleverer. Where I got my enjoyment from was watching the smugness wiped off the annoying lawyer’s face (Jamie Foxx) face every time Clyde killed one of his colleagues from behind bars. The funny thing is, at this point in the movie you’re supposed to think of Clyde as the bad guy and be rooting for the lawyer, yet all the way through I was 100% behind Clyde. I wonder if this is because I don’t like Jamie Foxx, or I don’t like his character?

So there are a few plot holes and the twist isn’t that clever, but it’s worth a watch if you’ve got nothing else to see.

I give Law Abiding Citizen – 6.5/10