Law Abiding Citizen

I just wuv pinchin' those chubby widdle cheeks...

Grade: D

Director: F. Gary Gray

Starring: Jaime Foxx, Gerard Butler, Leslie Bibb, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, and Viola Davis

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

When ironically-designated Law Abiding Citizen Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler, his chipmunk cheeks duly packed for the winter) watches his wife and daughter get slaughtered, and one of the killers plea bargain with Philadelphia prosecutor Nick Rice (Jaime Foxx, sleepwalking) in exchange for testimony against his less-culpable partner, Shelton stews and schemes for 10 years before hatching his elaborate brand of righteous, Saw-esque comeuppance against the murderers and members of the legal system.

It all makes for an attempted reprise of the vigilante vengeance flicks of the 1970s. Problem is in Death Wish, Charles Bronson didn’t take aim at criminals, attorneys, and judges alike, which Shelton does with disconcerting relish. For his first film since 2005’s woeful Be Cool, director F. Gary Gray unwisely chooses to team with chronic hack Kurt Wimmer, whose short-lived, checkered screenwriting credits already include Sphere, The Recruit, Ultraviolet, and the especially retched Street Kings.

Besides the gaping plot holes and silly contrivances (chief among them how Shelton is able to still carry out his explosive carnage from behind bars), this wingnut’s wet dream fails as either a moral object lesson or a competent actioner. There is no ethical equivalence between Shelton’s personal tragedy and an indefensible rampage against innocents only a Montana militiaman could rationalize. And, all’s not well (or justified) merely because it ends with Rice learning to be a better daddy and not cut deals with killers.

As she did in Doubt, Viola Davis brings gravitas to a brief role (this time as Philly’s besieged mayor), while she also teaches her leading men a lesson or two about acting. Unfortunately, Law Abiding Citizen is about any but; it’s reprehensible, nihilistic torture-porn only the Timothy McVeighs of the world could love.

Neil Morris

The Ugly Truth

Wait a sec...you're not the same guy I kissed
the last time I rode an elevator

Grade: C –

Director: Robert Luketic

Starring: Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Bree Turner, Eric Winter, Cheryl Hines, and John Michael Higgins

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Opposites attract in The Ugly Truth, and, let’s face it, most Hollywood romantic-comedies nowadays. The difference is that where most genre entries play it cute and safe, this raucous film swings for the Apatow fences, trying to fit a bawdy peg in a starry-eyed hole. The sad result is a cinematic strikeout.

Abby (Katherine Heigl) is a Sacramento TV news producer whose show is routinely bested by cable access programming and Who’s The Boss reruns. She is also chronically single, partly because she’s so controlling she prints talking points for her infrequent dates. Abby is eventually forced to incorporate the outrageous, but popular on-air talents of Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), a chauvinistic relationship expert. Before inevitable sparks fly between them, Mike plays Henry Higgins, improving Abby’s love-life by virtue of a not-so-extreme makeover, transforming her from a beautiful control-freak into a beautiful, busty bubble-head with hair extensions.

The ugly truth is that this outlandish, startlingly vulgar battle of the sexes – devoid of discernable chemistry between its two leads – is utterly divorced from the romantic reality it claims to illuminate. The ostensible lesson that true love flows from “just being yourself” is belied by the fact that Abby’s romantic fortunes increase only after she follows Mike’s transformational advice, just as Mike’s neanderthal notions of gender relations are borne out when Abby ultimately chooses the bad boy lout over the handsome, nice guy doctor.

Director Robert Luketic helms this misbegotten twist on Pygmalion that also clumsily pilfers Cyrano de Bergerac, Tom Cruise’s Frank T.J. Mackey from Magnolia, and the Meg Ryan restaurant orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally.

I am reminded more of Heigl’s last film, the similarly-misogynistic 500 Dresses. The dim prospects this latest dismal rom-com portends for her immediate film career are the surest evidence yet that Izzie just might beat her brain cancer.

Neil Morris