The first trailer has recently appeared online for the upcoming Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx drama-thriller, Law Abiding Citizen. We got our first look at the movie a few days ago with two posters which didn’t quite give off the same vibe that this first trailer does.
The film stars Gerard Butler as a man whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered and after a defense attorney (Foxx) cuts a deal, the killer walks. After taking revenge on the killer by (ironically enough) murdering him, Butler’s character is imprisoned himself. However, it seems he somehow is still managing to rack up the body count, even from within prison.
There’s been quite a bit of hassle going on behind-the-scenes with Law Abiding Citizen (as our friends over at /Film have pointed out): a rewrite to the script and change of director both occured before the film moved into production. It was originally written by Equilibrium screenwriter, Kurt Wimmer, with Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) handling the rewrite. The latter was apparently also tapped to direct, but after he left the project it was handed over to F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job).
What the trailer shows is a bit different to the previous synopsis listed. Not quite sure why. Anyway, check out the trailer [at Apple.com]
As I said, the trailer seems to show something quite different from what was given as the previous synopsis (there was apparently several summaries that told conflicting tales about which actor was playing which character). Maybe it’s just the studio trying to market the film as something a bit more fast-paced and “edgy†than it really is, but the trailer sure does make it look more like a thriller when I had a bit more of a drama in mind. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a total lack of action scenes, but from the looks of the trailer there’s a lot more than I had anticipated.
I’m looking forward to seeing Gerard Butler in an intense role, seeing him in so many post-300 Rom Coms (P.S. I Love You, The Ugly Truth). Even though Butler did do Guy Ritchie’s gangster flick, RocknRolla (amongst others), I still would like to see him in the type of role he looks to be playing in Law Abiding Citizen. The guy has talent and not just as a physical action actor (though he does look kick-ass in the upcoming Gamer).
The trailer doesn’t play up the “face off†angle between Butler and Jamie Foxx’s character as much as I thought it would, but we may see that in some of the later trailers that will inevitably get released. Butler and Foxx is an interesting pairing that I never would have thought of – I’m curious to see how well they work together.
What do you think of this trailer?
Law Abiding Citizen hits theaters on October 16th, 2009, in the US and on March 26th, 2010, in the UK.