I just saw Law Abiding Citizen. I started to think this was another case of a noble villain, but I’m not sure. What do you think? Is Clyde Shelton a sympathetic character?
More importantly, though, the movie raises two questions in my mind. The first of which is about the nature of plea bargains. Are they a necessary evil? Do these deals promote justice, or is just a way for criminals to game the system?
Secondly, who really won at the end of the movie? (Obviously, this deserves a spoiler alert, so stop reading now if you are interested in the “surprise” ending.) Some would argue that Nick Rice did. After all, he did stop Clyde. But I would say that Clyde won. Despite what I thought was bad writing and/or acting in the final scene, I think Clyde wanted to Nick to kill him. After all, Clyde has nothing else to live for. And more importantly, he got Nick to break his own rules and go outside of the system.
Anyway, what I’ve taken away from this is that I should just win all my cases instead of hedging with plea bargains if I want to avoid a killer coming after me. Done and done.
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