Foxx’s ‘Citizen’ awful, not lawful

“Law Abiding Citizen” is guilty of stupidity in the first degree.

Part horror film, part thriller, it fantasizes about what a man with a little money and a 10-year passion to get justice for his slaughtered family can accomplish.

He manages to get away with so much because he’s dealing with a pack of idiots and a script that is so contrived it will make your teeth ache.

Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a man of mystery who watches as a random home invasion leaves his wife and young daughter dead. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is the hotshot Philadelphia attorney who prosecutes the case.

It’s probably a slam dunk but Rice wants to keep his conviction rate high, so he cuts a deal with one of the killers. That makes Shelton mad. Fast forward 10 years and he launches a killing spree against anyone connected to the case.

Listing all the plot flaws would take more room than all the Smiths in the phone book.

Just one example: Shelton is supposed to be some super brain who works for the government thinking of creative methods to kill people. Yet he’s not smart enough to just fashion a simple way to snuff the two men who murdered his family. Instead he comes up with a 10-year plot that makes health-care reform seem simple.

Foxx is passable as the crusading attorney, but Butler as a psychotic killer is about as believable as a rabid Winnie the Pooh. He should stick to light romantic comedies or heavy special-effects action movies and leave the crazed killers to the likes of Anthony Hopkins.