Ever since his breakout role in 300, Gerard Butler has been testing out various on-screen personas in multiple cinematic genres in search of one that will resonate with the American public and that doesn’t require him to be shirtless for 90 minutes: He’s played a loutish thug in a gangster film (RockNRolla), a swashbuckling author in a kiddie pic (Nim’s Island), and Katherine Heigl’s foil in a rom-com (The Ugly Truth). And now, with his role in F. Gary Gray’s Law Abiding Citizen, he gets to experiment to discover whether people are interested seeing him as a seemingly timid man turned lethal killer in a revenge flick. Butler stars as a man whose life falls to pieces when his family is brutally murdered by especially unattractive robbers. As if that weren’t a horrible enough tragedy, he runs into a possibly crooked district attorney (Jamie Foxx) who brokers a shady plea bargain for the killers that puts one of the offenders back on the streets. It is then that Butler officially decides to get his revenge on, and we learn that he’s actually some sort of Jason Bourne–meets-Jigsaw figure who is able to somehow kill people in the outside world while he’s trapped behind bars. Sounds (and looks) like a stretch to us. Back to the well for you, Butler!
F. Gary Gray’s Law Abiding Citizen Trailer with Gerard Butler [First Showing]