Review: 'Law Abiding Citizen' full of plot holes

"Law Abiding Citizen" is guilty of stupidity in the first degree.

Part horror film, part thriller, it fantasizes about what a man with a little money and a 10-year passion to get justice for his slaughtered family can accomplish. He manages to get away with so much because he's dealing with a pack of idiots and a script that is so contrived it will make your teeth ache.

Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a man of mystery who watches as a random home invasion leaves his wife and young daughter dead. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is the hotshot Philadelphia attorney who prosecutes the case. The conviction is probably a slam dunk but Rice wants to keep his conviction rate high, so he cuts a deal with one of the killers. That makes Shelton mad.

Fast forward 10 years and Shelton launches a killing spree against anyone connected to the case. Even when he is imprisoned in what looks like a low-rent wing of the Bastille, his murderous plans continue.

Kurt Wimmer's script is a ludicrous series of events that must happen in exactly the right order or the plotline falls apart. He tries to mask the story's tedium with occasional ramblings about the criminal justice system. It's like hearing the safety officer on the Titanic stress the need for good dental hygiene as he slips into the icy water.

Listing all the plot flaws would take more room than all the Smiths in the phone book. Just one example: Shelton is supposed to be some super brain who works for the government thinking of creative methods to kill people. Yet he's not smart enough to just fashion a simple way to snuff the two men who murdered his family. Instead he comes up with a 10-year plot that makes health-care reform seem simple.

Director F. Gary Gray's pacing is so slow it feels like 10 years have passed. His shot selection looks like a cut-and-paste section from "Movie Making for Dummies."

Foxx is passable as the crusading attorney, but Butler as a psychotic killer is about as believable as a rabid Winnie the Pooh. Butler should stick to light romantic comedies or heavy special-effects action movies and leave the crazed killers to actors like Anthony Hopkins.

The inevitable conclusion: There should be a cease-and-desist order against "Law Abiding Citizen."