Law Abiding Citizen

In 1974 a movie came out with Charles Bronson called Death Wish. Charles Bronson played a Korean War vet who was now living a peaceful existence with his wife and daughter as an architect. One day he comes home and finds that his wife and daughter have been brutally raped and beaten. I remember how shocked I was. I had never seen an act of such violence before and the perpetrator’s treatment of the women was so dehumanizing that it made me cringe. What added more weight to the impact of my disgust, was that one of the women was Hope Lange of TV’s The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I couldn’t have been more upset if I saw Mrs. Brady and Mrs. Partridge doing porn.

When Joanna Kersey (Hope Lange) dies from her trauma, Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) turns from a mild-mannered architect into a one man vigilante. As a viewer I remember how easy it was to cross that line and take satisfaction in his murderous spree. It scared me when I realized what a short walk it was from love one another to an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. I also realized that in the right circumstances anyone is capable of murder.

Twenty-five years later after watching Law Abiding Citizen, what shocked me the most is how accustomed I have become to violence. As a society, we have become so desensitized that Hollywood needs to keep upping the ante in order to shock us. But what I really found disturbing in this movie is that our vigilante (Gerard Butler) had turned into as much of a monster as the bad guys who killed his family. He took ten years to plan his revenge and it wasn’t enough just to kill them, his victims had to die painfully. He was sadistic in a reap what you sow way, that you started to feel bad for the criminals.

Unlike Death Wish, twenty-five years later, I did not root for the vigilante in this film. Rather I was saddened that things have gone so far. I desperately wish there was a way to go back to a kinder, simpler time, but I don’t know how that is possible. You can’t un-ring a bell. It makes me wonder how far things will go in the future and what it will take to shock the next generation.

As an individual, we do have a choice. TVs have off buttons and movies sell tickets. I don’t have to go see them. But that violence is in our culture. It’s in our children’s games, so it’s hard to escape its impact. Today we don’t fear monsters and boogeymen, we fear terrorist, gangs and random acts of violence. I don’t know what the solution is, but we can start with this movie. The entertainment value is not worth your peace of mind. I recommend that you skip this one.

Rating: Don’t Bother The victim is now the criminal