Law Abiding Citizen
During a violent home invasion, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) witnesses the rape and murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte). During their trial, prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) informs Clyde that the case against Darby is weak due to botched forensic evidence and that Clyde's testimony alone is insufficient to prove either suspect's guilt. Nick, interested in maintaining his high conviction rate, strikes a deal: Darby gives testimony that will send Rupert to death row, and in exchange Nick allows Darby to plead guilty to third-degree murder, for which he will only serve three years in prison. Knowing that Darby is the actual killer, Clyde is left feeling betrayed by both Nick and the justice system.
Ten years later, Darby's accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart) is executed by lethal injection, but rather than this being painless, Rupert's death is agonizing. Investigations show the equipment used to deliver the lethal injection was tampered with. Trying to find a suspect, Nick suspects that Darby had been the culprit. As police converge on Darby's home, Darby receives a mysterious phone call warning him to flee. The unknown caller then directs him to a waiting patrol car with a comatose officer and directs Darby to drive to a designated spot. After forcing the policeman to drive there, Darby is about to shoot the policeman with his own gun. However, the policeman quickly reveals himself as Clyde, having set a trap for Darby.
Clyde then incapacitates Darby with a tetrodotoxin via the booby-trapped gun. Darby is paralyzed but still able to feel pain. Clyde then proceeds to torture Darby to death slowly, utilizing tourniquets, a saline drip, and an adrenaline injection to keep Darby alive and conscious for as long as possible, avenging his family's deaths in spite of most likely suffering PTSD.[original research?] Finding Darby's dismembered corpse, Detectives Dunnigan (Colm Meaney), Garza (Michael Irby) and the authorities arrest Clyde as the chief suspect. Clyde offers Nick a full confession in exchange for a new mattress in his cell, and Nick reluctantly agrees. Clyde represents himself at his hearing before Judge Laura Burch (Annie Corley) and is about to be granted bail, but launches into a tirade against the flaws in the legal system and is held in contempt of court for insulting her.
Granted his mattress, Clyde confesses both to murdering Darby and to switching the drugs used in Rupert's execution. He next demands a meal consisting of macaroni and cheese, asparagus and a t-bone steak and also demands an iPod music player by exactly 01:00pm the next day in exchange for revealing the location of Clarence's missing attorney (Richard Portnow). The warden (Gregory Itzin) deliberately delays the meal past Clyde's deadline and, as a result, the detectives arrive too late to save the attorney, who had been buried alive with a limited air supply. Meanwhile, Clyde murders his cellmate with the bone from his t-bone steak and is sent to solitary confinement as a result.
Nick's assistant Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb) finds evidence connecting Clyde with the Department of Defense. Nick and District Attorney Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill) learn from a CIA contact (Michael Kelly) that Clyde was an assassin, a brilliant strategist specializing in eliminating targets through unconventional means without being within the target's vicinity. After Judge Burch is killed by an exploding cellphone, Clyde admits to Nick that the killings are not only about revenge but also for the failure of the justice system. He declares that unless he is cleared of all charges and released by the next morning at 06:00am, he will "kill everyone". When his demands are not met, several members of the legal staff including Sarah are killed by bombs planted within their cars' gas tanks soon after 06:00am but investigators find Nick's car to be untouched however. Nick confronts Clyde about the killings and tells him if he had tried to convict Darby for murder he and Ames would have been acquitted. Clyde says that Nick didn't even try to help Clyde's case. Clyde also says if Nick had tried and failed to convict Darby, he would have accepted his honest loss. Meanwhile, the mayor (Viola Davis), alarmed at the deaths of the district attorney staff, assigns protection details to Nick and Jonas. The two later attend Sarah's funeral. While leaving the cemetery their convoy is ambushed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot, killing Jonas.
The already irate mayor meets with Nick who offers to resign, but the mayor refuses to fire him and instead appoints Nick as the acting District Attorney. Nick receives information from the CIA contact, leading to a garage owned by Clyde next to the prison, where he and Dunnigan discover a tunnel leading to the solitary confinement cells along with surveillance equipment, weapons, and disguises. They realize that Clyde tunnelled into the prison during the ten years prior to his arrest, and deliberately had himself sent to solitary confinement so that he could come and go and commit his string of killings while the authorities believed him to be locked up. Clyde's plans indicate that he has gone to Philadelphia City Hall. Disguised as a janitor, he places a cellphone-activated suitcase bomb in the city hall with the intention of assassinating the mayor during a security meeting with city officials. Nick rushes to city hall and finds the bomb but the bomb disposal specialist is unable to disarm it, and they cannot evacuate the building for fear that Clyde is watching.
Meanwhile, Clyde returns to his cell via his tunnel and finds Nick waiting for him. He offers Nick one last deal, but having finally begun to understand what Clyde has been trying to teach him, Nick refuses to make a deal with a murderer. Clyde exults at having finally changed Nick's ways. Nick cautions him against activating the bomb, but Clyde does so anyway. Nick seals the cell door and flees the building while Dunnigan seals the hatch to the tunnel. Clyde then realizes that they have placed the bomb under his bed and locked it with handcuffs. As Clyde sits staring at the bracelet given to him by his daughter, the bomb detonates, killing him.
In the end, Nick and his wife watch their daughter perform on stage.
