Law Abiding Citizen and Pirate Radio Movie Reviews

By Eddy

Yes Dear Readers, Dancinghotdogs.com does do movie reviews. I know it is hard to believe but it is getting to that special part of the year that I like to call “Tent Pole” season (please ignore the sexual double entendre!) This is the season that all the blockbuster films come out…which means a couple of good movies are coming as well as way too many bad ones.

So to ease you into this joyous season, I am going to break down the movies that I got to see on my way to and from Europe.

On my way to the Czech Republic I saw:

Law Abiding Citizen

Let me start off by saying that reading the description had me kind of excited.  A mourning father taking revenge on the people that let the murder of his family go including the murderer.  While I admit that I am not the most conventional and normal father, I doubt there is any Dad that wouldn’t get some sort of grim satisfaction at destroying those who destroyed his family (I should also say that my favorite book is the Count of Monte Cristo, which I am currently reading again on my blackberry, got to love that e-reader technology.)

The big pull of the trailer is the “the people are dying even while he is in prison” meaning that he planned them all out ahead of time.  To me it foreshadowed a Saw type of vibe where the audience is trying to figure out how the next person is going to do, all the while the movie is trying to top itself on the next execution. 

Unfortunately, the actual movie really didn’t go that way.  Gerard Butler plays the vengeful father and Jamie Foxx as Butler’s ambitious lawyer who take a plea bargain and lets the bad guys go.  We find out through the movie, that Butler is some sort of killing genius for the military, basically the guy they go to when they need a solution to an impossible task (already we know this guy doesn’t really exist or we would have already killed Bin Laden).  His main skill is being able to kill people without even having to be there, a skill that works perfectly when you are incarcerated.  Now Butler goes on his righteous killing spree using these skills of his.

Of course, we are supposed to sympathize with Butler and hate on Foxx, which I did pretty easily.  The moment the movie loses me though is at the end of the movie, we are supposed to like Foxx’s character or at least root for him to stop Butler, before Butler gets him.  Seriously, Foxx in the first place isn’t really a likable person, yes he did a great job in Ray, but for the most part he comes off more like his character Bunz in Booty Call (which explains why he just isn’t able to command the box office like other African American stars..  So to ask me to invest emotionally in his character is basically an impossible task.

The rest of the movie is your basic thriller action movie plot, with things blowing up, narrow escapes and crappy dialogue.  In my estimate this was jus a “For the money” project for Foxx and the Movie Studio’s attempt to feed off of Butler’s success from 300 . Too bad, Gerard much like Foxx can’t carry a movie (and don’t get me started on Ray , Foxx wasn’t the star, it was really Ray Charles and the Director that won him the Oscar, being able to do a Ray Charles impression doesn’t really earn you an Oscar in my book.)

So, in the end, this movie is a pass if you find it on the plane or in Movie Kiosk (Redbox or Blockbuster).  In terms of a plane trip themed movie rating, this is a down grade to coach near the engines of the plane as you sit in the middle row in between strangers.

And on my way back from Germany I saw:

Pirate Radio In another example of Studio Executive brilliance, Pirate Radio can be briefly summarized as Almost Famous with Pirates…well, maybe I overstating it a bit, actually the two movies really aren’t that similar at all, especially when you take out Philip Seymour Hoffman and the whole Rock n’Roll music angle out.  

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