{"id":29292,"date":"2025-06-29T08:51:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T15:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=29292"},"modified":"2025-06-29T08:51:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T15:51:19","slug":"review-law-abiding-citizen-4kuhd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2025\/06\/review-law-abiding-citizen-4kuhd\/","title":{"rendered":"Law Abiding Citizen 4K Ultra HD Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Law Abiding Citizen<\/em><\/strong> was a bit of a disappointment for me. I know what the filmmakers\u2019 were after by making giving the audience a difficult choice of which character to \u2018root\u2019 for, but the moral choice didn\u2019t work for me.<\/p>\n

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Law Abiding Citizen<\/span>
\n(2009)<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Genre(s): <\/strong>Suspense\/Thriller, Drama<\/span>
\nLionsgate | R\/Unrated \u2013 109 min. \u2013 $34.99 | May 20, 2025<\/span><\/p>\n

Date Published:<\/strong> 06\/29\/2025 | Author:<\/strong> The Movieman<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\n<\/strong>I may earn a commission when purchasing through the links below and appreciate your support!<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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MOVIE INFO:
\n<\/u><\/strong>Directed by: <\/strong>F. Gary Gray
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Kurt Wimmer (written by)
\nCast: <\/strong>Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb, Michael Irby, Regina Hall, Gregory Itzin, Christian Stolte, Richard Portnow, Viola Davis, Michael Kelly, Josh Stewart<\/span><\/p>\n
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DISC INFO:
\n<\/u><\/strong>Features: <\/strong>Commentary, Featurettes, Theatrical Trailer
\nDigital Copy: <\/strong>Yes
\nFormats Included: <\/strong>4K, Blu-ray
\nNumber of Discs: <\/strong>2<\/span><\/p>\n
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Audio: <\/strong>English (Dolby Atmos), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0)
\nVideo: <\/strong>2160p\/Widescreen 2.40
\nDynamic Range: <\/strong>HDR10, Dolby Vision
\nSubtitles: <\/strong>English SDH, French, Spanish
\nCodecs: <\/strong>HEVC \/ H.265
\nRegion(s): <\/strong>A, B, C<\/span><\/p>\n
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Lionsgate provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.<\/strong><\/span>
\nThe opinions I share are my own.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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THE MOVIE \u2014 3\/5<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Note:<\/strong> This review is of the \u201cUnrated Director\u2019s Cut\u201d and portions were copied over from my 2010 Blu-ray review.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure director F. Gary Gray and writer Kurt Wimmer had a great psychological thriller on their hands on paper, the problem is, and this seems to happen all too often, what comes onto the big screen thanks to pacing or even casting, doesn\u2019t translate very well.<\/p>\n

The story behind Law Abiding Citizen<\/em><\/strong> is about Clyde Shelton (GERARD BUTLER), a family man whose wife and daughter are brutally raped and murdered. It\u2019s never explained why he was left alive, but the two thugs who committed the crime are arrested. When hotshot and on the rise prosecutor Nick Rice (JAMIE FOXX), who has a 96% conviction rate, tells Clyde that he doesn\u2019t have much of a case thanks to contaminated evidence, he is going to offer one of the men a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against the other man. Apparently it\u2019s not enough that both men could be convicted of felony murder (murder committed during the act of a felony), but the one getting the plea bargain is the man, Darby, who did the raping and presumably killing. Makes sense. With the plea, he will receive only 5 years while the other man, named Aimes, gets the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Flash forward 10 years and Aimes is set to get the needle. Everything is going well until one of the chemicals gets into his system and sends shocking pain through him. This is only the beginning as Darby, trying to escape from the police after being suspected of Aimes\u2019 brutal execution, runs right into Clyde who promptly kidnaps him and takes him to Clyde\u2019s abandoned warehouse where the torture truly starts.<\/p>\n

After Darby\u2019s separated remains are found, the police \u2013 and D.A.\u2019s office for some reason \u2013 immediately get onto Shelton\u2019s trail finding him in a remote home and buck naked. He is taken into custody and the mind games then begin as Rice decides to take the lead in interrogating Clyde. After some back and forth in which Clyde makes it clear, without stating outright, that he committed the murders, he wants a plea deal for his full confession: a nice mattress to replace the crappy one in his jail cell. Moving forward, it\u2019s not entirely that simple and eventually his master plan is revealed that he is going to target people he feel are responsible for the wrong that has been done him and his family.<\/p>\n

How does he do it from behind bars? Does he have an accomplice? Well, the reveal of how it was all done is quite clever… and ultimately really lame when you thought about it afterwards. In any case, Nick grows increasingly frustrated and angry and will stop at nothing to stop Clyde before he is able to kill any more innocents before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

Even a few days after watching the movie, I\u2019m still unsure exactly what to think about it, which is actually a good thing that I am still thanking about the movie after some time. However, I can only come with one conclusion: I could not like or care about either one of the main characters. First, I never like Jamie Foxx\u2019s character especially since he was spineless and signed a plea bargain with a rapist rather than taking his chances and go to trial (it came across that the only reason he took the deal was to keep his nearly spotless record intact). Second, I absolutely had sympathy for Gerard Butler\u2019s character as any husband\/father who witnessed something so horrendous would be transformed for the worse and would want to exact revenge on a justice system that let him down, but then he crosses the line from revenge on the villains and went after innocent civilians and those who had nothing to do with the plea bargain and that took things in a different direction.<\/p>\n

I think one of the solutions to this problem to the change of a sympathetic villain to a truly insane and evil one that Shelton turned into would have been to take the plea bargain out of Rice\u2019s hands and instead had his boss (played by Bruce McGill) force it on him that way once the turn is made in the movie, we at least would have had sympathy for one of these characters rather than hanging on to the last 40-minutes or so and hate both of them and wish they\u2019d both would die. It\u2019s never a good thing when you have an already inane plot twist coupled with characters you don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

As for the acting, I thought Gerard Butler was OK with what he was given. The opening was certainly horrific and hard to watch, yet Butler played it perfect. The rest of his performance struck the right tone throughout but it doesn\u2019t go beyond menacing faces and threats. As for Jamie Foxx, winner of an Academy Award, it\u2019s really all the same we\u2019ve seen from him before. He acts like a tool from the onset and doesn\u2019t turn back.<\/p>\n

Director F. Gary Gray has proven to be a capable director in the past and since didn\u2019t have much (if anything) to do with the script, I can\u2019t fault him here. The pacing for the film was just right and really, despite the issues I had with the characters and plot.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, one can also take aim at screenwriter Kurt Wimmer. Wimmer you might recall also wrote (and directed) Equilibrium<\/em> and Ultraviolet<\/em> as well as writing some decent flicks like The Thomas Crown Affair<\/em> remake, The Recruit<\/em>, Street Kings<\/em> and Salt<\/em>.. But as I\u2019ve already said, the problem especially with the characters made me turn on the film on the whole, no matter how interesting the story may have been on paper. Like I suggested, if once that turn was made from Shelton becoming a sympathetic villain to an evil genius — and yes, he would have to be Einstein genius to accomplish what he does in this film –, then our sympathies must turn to someone else, but there is no one I could care about for the last third of the film… And that falls squarely on Wimmer\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n

Overall, Law Abiding Citizen<\/em><\/strong> has some merits going for it but I just could not get past two ass-hat characters and a plot twist that might\u2019ve sounded fantastic during pre-production meetings doesn\u2019t make a whole lot of sense, in the world the film is set in (i.e. a realistic world). I would go into this cautiously because this might be a case where you either loved the film or hated it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 3\u00bc\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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This release comes in a Steelbook case and inside the redemption code for the Digital HD<\/strong> copy. The 4K disc only contains the Theatrical Version. The Blu-ray disc has the Unrated Director\u2019s Cut which runs about 9-minutes longer.<\/p>\n

Feature Commentary<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 The theatrical cut includes a commentary with Producers Lucas Foster and Alan Siegel. The two give some behind-the-scenes insight into the making of the film and how it all started before moving onto the story and characters.<\/p>\n

The Justice of Law Abiding Citizen (6:15)<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 This is a basic, but on the surface interesting, featurette filled with clips from the film followed by sound clips with members of the crew (producer Lucas Foster and Director F. Gary Gray) and a former prosecutor and ADA who explain the crimes in the movie. The experts explain how difficult the case shown in the movie would\u2019ve been to prosecute and win.<\/p>\n

Law in Black and White: Behind the Scenes (15:06)<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 Once again, we get some more sound bites from the members of the cast and crew sprinkled in with footage from the movie as well as behind-the-scenes footage. It\u2019s not terribly fascinating or anything, but gives you a little insight into the filmmaking process.<\/p>\n

Preliminary Arguments: Visual Effects Progressions (6:46)<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 Here we get to look at the progressions of five scenes (death row, snow enhancement, gun injection, prison explosion, car crash pre-vis) with overlaid commentary by producer Lucas Foster.<\/p>\n

Finally the disc has something called The Verdict: Winning Trailer Mash-Up (1:05)<\/u><\/strong> and the regular Theatrical Trailer (2:26)<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 4\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Lionsgate releases Law Abiding Citizen<\/em><\/strong> on 4K UHD where it is presented with a 2.40 widescreen aspect ratio and given a fine if not underwhelming 2160p high-definition transfer (HEVC codec). While this wasn\u2019t exactly an overly impressive 4K transfer, there was an ever so moderate difference over an already decent Blu-ray video. Colors are generally more on the tame side geared more toward darker tones in keeping with the story. Even so, detail was generally sharp and at least there were some pop of color such as with the numerous explosions that occur throughout the movie.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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AUDIO \u2013 4\u00be\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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The movie gets a slight upgrade from the Blu-rays Dolby TrueHD 5.1 to a strong and robust Atmos track. This a great sounding track providing both clear dialogue and nice depth via the front and rear channels that ranged from ambient noises to the reverberations from the action with an extra boost from the LFE which shook the floor and wall.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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OVERALL \u2014 3\u00be\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Law Abiding Citizen<\/em><\/strong> was a bit of a disappointment for me. I know what the filmmakers\u2019 were after by making giving the audience a difficult choice of which character to \u2018root\u2019 for, but the moral choice didn\u2019t work for me and I ended up being soured towards both Butler and Foxx\u2019s characters. The 4K release has a good video transfer to go along with great audio while the features were merely okay.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Law Abiding Citizen was a bit of a disappointment for me. I know what the filmmakers\u2019 were after by making giving the audience a difficult choice of which character to \u2018root\u2019 for, but the moral choice didn\u2019t work for me.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4581],"tags":[1915,1774,213,6221,214,1667,2576,4343,1083,1469],"class_list":["post-29292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4k-uhd-reviews","tag-bruce-mcgill","tag-colm-meaney","tag-gerard-butler","tag-gregory-itzin","tag-jamie-foxx","tag-josh-stewart","tag-leslie-bibb","tag-michael-kelly","tag-regina-hall","tag-viola-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29293,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29292\/revisions\/29293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}