Law Abiding Citizen · reception & legacy

2009 · F. Gary Gray

How Law Abiding Citizen has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Critics shredded it in 2009 (it sits in the 20s on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences turned it into a $100M+ hit anyway — and it's since become one of those thrillers that resurfaces every couple of years to dominate Netflix top-10 charts like it just came out.

What's debated

The eternal fight is over the ending: a huge chunk of fans think the movie builds a case for Clyde and then loses its nerve, siding with the wrong character in the final act.

Its footprint

"It's gonna be biblical" is the line everyone quotes, and 'Clyde was right' is basically its own genre of internet discourse — the film is a fixture of cable rewatches and 'movies where you root for the villain' lists.

Where it stands

A certified dad-thriller cult classic: low critic scores, middling Letterboxd averages, and yet a 'no, you have to see it' rewatchability that keeps dragging in new viewers via streaming.

★ Did you know? Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) was originally attached to direct but left the project over creative differences, with F. Gary Gray stepping in — and Gerard Butler has said he was first drawn to the prosecutor role before switching to play Clyde.