Law Abiding Citizen, a blunt and sadistic revenge thriller starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, occasionally pauses from the mayhem to stage a solemn debate about law, justice and morality. Butler, playing a family man whose wife and daughter were murdered by thugs, feels he was let down by the system, which gave one of the thugs a light sentence in exchange for testimony against the other thug, who was sentenced to death. Foxx, the prosecutor who made that deal, thinks that the system, however imperfect, did its job.
But really, Law Abiding Citizen has about as much to say about real-life legal issues as Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen had to say about defense policy. And it has less ethical gravity than any three of the Saw movies. Though it sometimes puts on a serious face, this movie, directed with snarling, snappish style by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job), wears its preposterousness with a certain pride. It’s about the cat-and-mouse game between two very smart guys, and it’s perfectly happy to be as dumb as it wants.
Nick Rice, Foxx’s character, is slick and ambitious, proud of his 96 percent conviction rate and quite sure that he’s the cleverest and coolest person in the room. This does not seem like much of a stretch for Foxx, who is cashing in on his Oscar rather than going after a second one. Butler, for his part, displays a surliness that many in Hollywood seem to mistake for charisma, and suffers the anguish of violent bereavement as if it were an annoying gastrointestinal ailment.
His character, Clyde Shelton, returns 10 years after the death of his family to tie up some loose ends. He dispatches the thugs, willingly goes to prison and starts doing dinner theater Hannibal Lecter for Foxx’s benefit. “Some lessons must be learned in blood,” Clyde declares, one of many portentous proverbs that he seems to have learned during his career as a military killing-gizmo specialist.
The details of his job history are revealed, during a secret meeting in a tunnel somewhere, late in the movie. But don’t think I’ve spoiled anything. By the time I saw Law Abiding Citizen, I had already seen the trailer four or five times. Another 40 viewings would have added up to the running time of the whole film, without much loss of pleasure or nuance.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Most of the fun in the feature-length Law Abiding Citizen comes not from the cleverly rigged explosions and bloodlettings — including one unleashed by a robot in a cemetery — but rather from the game and gifted supporting cast, who are not featured in the two-minute trailer version.
Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb and Bruce McGill are all much better than they need to be, as is Viola Davis in a few scenes as the mayor of Philadelphia, where this bloodbath takes place. You can’t help regretting that some of their characters will meet fiery or bloody ends. On the other hand, the actors were no doubt paid well for their suffering.
March 24 to March 30 When Yang Bing-yi (楊秉彝) needed a name for his new cooking oil shop in 1958, he first thought of honoring his previous employer, Heng Tai Fung (恆泰豐). The owner, Wang Yi-fu (王伊夫), had taken care of him over the previous 10 years, shortly after the native of Shanxi Province arrived in Taiwan in 1948 as a penniless 21 year old. His oil supplier was called Din Mei (鼎美), so he simply combined the names. Over the next decade, Yang and his wife Lai Pen-mei (賴盆妹) built up a booming business delivering oil to shops and
Indigenous Truku doctor Yuci (Bokeh Kosang), who resents his father for forcing him to learn their traditional way of life, clashes head to head in this film with his younger brother Siring (Umin Boya), who just wants to live off the land like his ancestors did. Hunter Brothers (獵人兄弟) opens with Yuci as the man of the hour as the village celebrates him getting into medical school, but then his father (Nolay Piho) wakes the brothers up in the middle of the night to go hunting. Siring is eager, but Yuci isn’t. Their mother (Ibix Buyang) begs her husband to let
The Taipei Times last week reported that the Control Yuan said it had been “left with no choice” but to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the central government budget, which left it without a budget. Lost in the outrage over the cuts to defense and to the Constitutional Court were the cuts to the Control Yuan, whose operating budget was slashed by 96 percent. It is unable even to pay its utility bills, and in the press conference it convened on the issue, said that its department directors were paying out of pocket for gasoline
For the past century, Changhua has existed in Taichung’s shadow. These days, Changhua City has a population of 223,000, compared to well over two million for the urban core of Taichung. For most of the 1684-1895 period, when Taiwan belonged to the Qing Empire, the position was reversed. Changhua County covered much of what’s now Taichung and even part of modern-day Miaoli County. This prominence is why the county seat has one of Taiwan’s most impressive Confucius temples (founded in 1726) and appeals strongly to history enthusiasts. This article looks at a trio of shrines in Changhua City that few sightseers visit.
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