Vintage

Law Abiding Citizen is a somewhat outlandish thriller but I liked it.  It was well-acted and carried out its sometimes silly plot with conviction.  Ah, conviction, an operative word in Law Abiding Citizen.

The film stars Jaimie Foxx as a prosecuting attorney Nick Rice.   However, before we even get to know rice, we witness a brutal crime.  Gerard Butler is Clyde Shelton, a man opening the door to his house when he is hit square in the face with a baseball bat.  His wife is then raped and murdered.  He somehow lives.

Later, Nick Rice is prosecuting the thugs that murdered his family and to ensure his 96-percent conviction rate, cuts a deal to send one of the accused to death row while the other gets a lesser degree murder rape rap.  Rice assures Shelton this is their only option because the case is not air tight.  After all, since Shelton passed out his testimony will be of no help.  Shelton is furious and he fumes.  

Cut to ten years later.

Rice is enjoying the success of his career.  Shelton, meanwhile, launches into a scheme to kill the man who killed his family.  How this is done is quite gruesome and shows us that Shelton, despite our sympathy for him, clearly is wiling to go overboard in exacting his revenge. 

Okay, I will tell you: he dismembers Darby, one of the men responsible for killing his family.  Only he does it by first injecting him with Puffer fish toxin that keeps him alert yet paralyzed.  Darby awakes to fin himself strapped to a table.  Shelton then pumps adrenaline into him intravenously so the man will not pass out as his limbs are being removed.  Is he happy now?  No.  How he seeks revenge on the entire justice system, which includes Rice.

Slowly Shelton is able to kill many people in the justice system, including attorneys, judges, legal counsel and inmates, all from his jail cell.  After all, he let himself be caught.  Is Rice next?  Is he saving him for last?  Perhaps. 

Nevertheless, Rice is going to fight back.  In his way are several clever ploys on the part of Shelton to kill basically the whole justice department.  Or, are these ideas merely over the top?  I mean Shelton employs a drone to kill a bunch of people at a funeral.  Plus, Shelton is seemingly is the toughest guy that ever lived.  We learn why - at least plausibly why in Law Abiding Citizen he is so tough.  He is ex-CIA, trained to kill people with unorthodox ways.  Okay.  I'll buy that.  But, jeez, how come we are still fighting in Afghanistan with guys like Shelton on our side?  I mean he can literally kill an entire governmental arm all from within his jail cell?  Yet, can't get all those enemies in Afghanistan?  

I won't harp on the incredible chain of events that must go precisely right so Shelton can carry out his revenge.  I will say that law Abiding Citizen is a well done and well acted thriller.  It's a film where since the actors believe what they are doing, we do too.  A bit over the top, yes, but I was entertained and bad guys were killed creatively.  Isn't that what CoolFilmz.com is all about?  Wait a second...  I think there is a drone parked around the corner. 

There is something wonderfully frightening about films dealing with possible mind control and dual realities.  In some sense, you never can quite make out heads from tails.  It is like living in the world of the Matrix.  Are you really living in reality or merely plugged into the Matrix?  There have been all sorts of plays on this false versus so-called real reality and Shutter Island is next in line.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and staring Leonardo DiCaprio as U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, Shutter Island is a 2010 American psychological thriller film based on Dennis Lehane's 2003 novel of the same name. Daniels is investigating the psychiatric facility on Shutter Island, where we soon learn he suspects all sorts of inhumane Nazi-style mind experiments are taking place.  It is a quest for truth and the truth might make us all insane when all the cards are flipped over and we learn the truth of Shutter Island.

Shutter Island is a superb psycho-thriller. In an era where vampires should wear panties it is refreshing to see a good hard-ass thriller done the right way.  The film is nearly flawless in its presentation of mood and atmosphere.  It is like we are watching a haunted house movie only this movie is really dealing with psychiatric wards.  The criminally insane are presented with distorted yet somehow real mental disturbances and physical appearances creating a creepy world that is both One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nets and Shawshank Redemption. 

DiCaprio is an A-list talent who can actually act.  He is on the money.  From his quick piercing "defense mechanisms" to his shaking hands.  At the drop of a dime, he looks ready to attack someone yet conveys with convincing authority the aura of an accomplished lawman.

The supporting cast is perfectly imagined.  Ben Kingsley is Dr. John Crawley, a seemingly morose yet intelligent and weird doctor-type who runs the programs at Shutter Island.  Mark Ruffalo is U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule. 

As the film opens, Aule is assigned to Daniels as his new partner.  It is through Aule, that we soon learn of Daniels' ulterior reason for taking the assignment at Shutter Island.  

Daniels is convinced that the arsonist that set his house on fire, thus killing his wife, was eventually housed and locked away at Shutter Island.  Through another ex-institutionalized patent, he comes to believe that Nazi style experiments are being conducted in the light house at Shutter Island.  Well, in a way he is right - the controversial treatment of the lobotomy, which was in its full hey day in the after math of World War II, was a treatment that took place in the Light House.  In case you don't know, a lobotomy is "cure' where they drill into your head and scrape away at your brain until you are healed.  Many claim it simply created mindless drooling vegetables and the practice soon gave way to psychotherapy drugs.  

As Daniels begins to learn and suspect more and more on his quest for the truth at Shutter Island, it just may be that the truth is more horrifying than he could possibly imagine.  Slowly and quite unsettling, Daniels begins to resemble many of the very patients that are institutionalized on the Island.  He begins to doubt his partner.  He begins to doubt his own reality.  We begin to wonder too. 

The only thing that seems absolutely certain is one thing: this film is an Ace.