On my first movie venture in months, I settled on Law Abiding Citizen, thanks to the co-stars, Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler. I figured between the blockbusters that they've fronted, I was bound to like this one. Somehow, I'm not sure how I feel about it, possibly because I was bludgeoned by the brutality of the situation or maybe because the morality seems extremely conflicted.

For those of you who have just seen the snippets of a trailer, Clyde (Butler) watches as his wife is raped and his family is murdered, moments into the film. If Zombieland is not for the squeamish due to gore, then this one might be as much of a turn-off based on the Saw-like, Seven-influenced violence of its first third. Waiting ten years, Clyde returns from anonymity to battle the apathetic court system that he believes failed him, and settles on Nick Rice (Foxx), a rising star in the District Attorney's office of Philadelphia, as the system's representative. But Clyde takes vigilantism to a whole new level: this is Batman on speed, with a license to kill.

Somehow, we're a country (or is it society?) that is in love with vigilantes. We've got Batman, The Punisher, Zorro, etc., and lately, films like The Brave Oneor Death Sentence, anything starring or directed by Clint Eastwood, and more. But Law Abiding Citizen is so much more than vigilante justice, because Clyde takes so much pleasure in meting out justice. Seriously, I was behind Clyde for most of the film (I think) because of how apathetic Foxx's Rice and others appeared in dealing with the criminals, but it only takes so many dismemberments and brutal, cold-blooded slayings before you have to grow a little skeptical of his being on the side of good.

We learn later on in the movie that Clyde might not be as as innocent as we'd think even before his family gets executed, but his brand of justice certainly has its roots in eye-for-an-eye sentiments. I wasn't given the impression that Clyde "snapped," but at some point, his desire for justice exceeds punishing those who actually perpetrated the crimes against his family and reaches those who he believes stood by and did nothing. At this point, Clyde moves from vigilante to murderer, because he ends up killing those who had nothing to do with his case ten years ago.

Joining Butler and Foxx are Viola Davis, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Regina Hill, and Colm Meaney, showing that the movie certainly doesn't suffer from talent, but talent alone don't make this one rise up. Instead, it's like we're watching a slaughter flick with a plot... and a plot-twisted hole the size of Philadelphia's City Hall. And we're left with some issues unresolved, even as Rice "learns" from Clyde and ends up using his own methods against him. So, the antihero who cared more about his job and win percentage learns to punish the wicked and spend time with his family.... Does that outweigh the first hour and forty-four minutes?

I know that Clyde has vengeful fantasies that may be "justice" for some, but I found myself thinking that he was someone who got caught up in his own vendetta and lost sight of what was real in the first place. I heard echoes of Jay Leno's interview with Kanye a month ago when Rice asks Clyde, "How would your wife and daughter feel about all this?" Clyde is less repentant, though: he says that they are at a place where they don't feel anything. Obviously, he thinks the only way to make himself feel something is to make others feel worse.

I think that's my "take away" from the movie: too often we think that we'll feel better if we make someone else feel "less." We think we need more of whatever: money, status, power, sex, stuff. We think that'll make us happy and fulfilled. But too often, we find out that jumping into that hole makes us fall farther and farther away from who we want to be. I know (on a much smaller level) that cutting off the driver who cut me off only makes me look foolish, or that lashing out at a family member or co-worker who hurt me only makes me feel worse. Whatever happened to treating others as we wanted to be treated? I know that doesn't make for dramatic film, but somehow, Law Abiding Citizen didn't sell me on its brand of justice.

Maybe we would be better to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Those dynamics in the little things (like me behind the wheel) just might change our world view. Can you imagine no more poverty, no more injustice, or no more war? Me neither, but that doesn't stop me from believing that it's possible.