If I can summarize this movie in three words: brutal
thrilling action.
The story tells us about a man, Clyde Shelton, played by
Gerald Butler, whose wife and daughter are killed before his eyes (that scene
is actually the most brutal and sickening to me). The killers get caught, but one of the killers strikes a
deal and gets a minimum sentence. 10 years later Clyde
goes on a roaring rampage of revenge, targeting everyone who he thinks has any
responsibility in the matter, ranging from the killers to the district attorney,
and especially his former lawyer, Nick Rice, played by Jamie Foxx.
Even though Clyde himself strongly
denies that revenge is his motive, I seriously doubt there was any other real
motive. He claims to accuse the legal system of being extremely flawed, letting
gruesome murderers go free by striking “deals”, and to prove his point, he
murders people gruesomely. Besides the fact that there are probably a lot more
efficient ways to "expose" the system, does he really has to kill all those people, and go
about it so brutally? Is it just for the sake of brutality? I mean, that seems like
double standards in measuring morality to me.
That sort of contradictions in the moral values and other
beliefs of Clyde returns several times during the movie (e.g. he lets his
family “watch” while he kills someone, by hanging up a photograph of them, but
later claims that his family can’t feel anything, because they’re dead). For
me, that was a bit of a letdown. Of course you could say that he really is just a nutter without any moral standards,
but I don’t think that was what the director intended.
Other than that, it was a pretty decent and thrilling action
movie. There were several unexpected turns and surprises, mixed with some
nicely thought-out mystery. The writer, Kurt Wimmer, does use that sort of
mystery often (e.g. Salt, Equilibrium,…). And don’t get me wrong: the brutality
actually makes the whole a lot more terrifying (in a good way). Because of the
way Clyde handles things, you can’t really call him the
“good guy”. The viewer is still free to make up his or her own mind about who
is wrong or right here. Not bad sir, not bad.
About the acting, I don’t really have anything good or bad
to say. Both Butler and Foxx
performed quite well, but apart from the first scene, not really mind-blowing.
To me, the best performance in the movie was that of Viola Davis, playing as
the mayor. I could really see the masked distress and fear in her way of
handling the situation.
To summarize: An unusual, brutal action movie definitely
worth watching, if you don’t try to scrutinize the movie in every detail.
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