Law Abiding Citizen - a fairly good time

Jamie Fox and Gerard Butler star in a new thriller from director F.Gary Gray, and it's one of the best things any of the three of them has ever done. For Butler, he's got a few films that are better (300, Rock N Rolla), for Fox, this is probably his best, and for F Gary Gray, well, he's done a bad job with movies more often than a good job (Be Cool).

But this movie is a step up for all of them. It's about one man taking on the system and by the system I mean the city of Philadelphia. That one man is Gerard Butler, and the first quarter of the movie, the setup if you will, is fairly conventional. Man loses family to killers. Man becomes killer and goes after those responsible after court fails him. It's all very familiar from movies like Death Sentence. But then Butler goes after the cops and things get interesting.

He's got one trick up his sleeve after another, and they're all a lot of fun. There's even a nice little surprise where the magic trick is revealed and we learn how he did it all. The movie is both a thriller and a mystery and I like that it is not a one on one showdown, and instead has Butler target everyone in the cities government, including both the mayor and city hall. In that way it reminds me of The Dark Knight. Butler is very good in the role and F Gary Gray keeps things pretty edgy. It's a fun time at the movies and something a little different.

Extract, not great, but more enjoyable than most.

It's strange to be recommneding a movie based on these grounds. It's just that these days most movies are lousy and leave you both unfulfilled and feeling like the experience had nothing to offer. Well, Extract is better than those movies. It is not hilarious and doesn't satisfy the laughter need you go in with, but it certainly has an ejoyable story about a fun little loop-hole situation that seems to make sense, not only to its characters, but also to us. Jason Bateman wants to cheat on his wife, but can't unless she cheats on him first, so he hires a gigolo to seduce and sleep with her. Things get a little out of control from there. There's another main plot going on besides this one that involves a factory accident, a hot seductress (femme fatale baby), and a suing of the factory that can put the whole place out of business. The two plot lines run side by side for Joel, who also has to deal with an annoying neighbor who won't take no for an answer. For about half this movie, I thought it was just average, maybe even a little below. Not really funny and just slightly interesting. But then unexpected things started happening, some of them twisty, some of them just fun and nice. And the movie got better and better as it went on. The cast is appealing, and that goes a long way.In the end, Mike Judge has constructed a fun little film that doesn't do anything spectacular, but is still enjoyable on a very light level.