In each era of American history, the then modern-day American political climate seems to always seep into our countries
action movies. Sometimes they manifest in interesting ways but other times history has shown that action cinema chooses to reflect the real world in toxic
ways that try to soothe the frayed nerves of privileged members of society in order to ensure that everything is just hunky-dory with the actually troublesome status quo. Much
like Rambo and other testosterone-fueled action movies of the 1980s were very
much made as responses to the post-Vietnam climate of the country, Law Abiding Citizen is a movie made for the
era of the PATRIOT act as good guy detectives proudly deliver “heroic” lines
like “Fuck his civil liberties” and a mayor played by Viola Davis makes a sweeping speech
to urge law enforcement officers to bend the law to take down Gerard Butler’s
baddie. The end justifies the means for Law Abiding Citizen, a thriller seemingly
handmade for people who would dismiss Taxi to the Dark Side as “fake news”.
