29.0°

I figured I would know what to make of "Law Abiding Citizen" after I slept on it for a night.

Nope.

F. Gary Gray's film tries from the first frame to sicken you. "Citizen" begins with Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) sitting at home with his young daughter. She is busy making bracelets for Mom and Dad; he is busy adoring her when his wife calls them for dinner as there is a knock on the door. When he opens it he is greeted by a baseball bat to the face. What happens next is supposed to justify the next two hours of the story. Clyde is subdued and handcuffed by one assailant; the other, clearly the more evil of the two, proceeds to murder Clyde's wife and then his daughter.

Clyde lives, but he's a broken man. When the prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal with one of the murderers to ensure he can send the other to death row, Clyde doesn't take the news too well. So far, so good. Writer Kurt Wimmer and Gray are clearly pointing out the justice system is flawed. Obviously, when the guy who actually murdered two people is given a deal by the D.A. to testify against his cohort, and is consequently allowed to virtually skate on the slaying of a wife and daughter... something isn't working.

Fast forward 10 years, and everything is status quo. Assistant district attorney Nick Rice (Foxx) now has a 10 -year-old daughter of his own (she is apparently some sort of cello-playing prodigy, which just seems unnecessary and stupid) and he is still working hard to put as many bad guys away as he can. We catch up with Rice on the day that the killer he sent away for the murders of Clyde's family is set to be executed.

The normally "humane" lethal injection turns out to be quite cruel and very unusual; Rice and company immediately suspect the other murderer, the one they essentially let off the hook. But we know better. And soon, so does he when he finds himself drugged, paralyzed, and strapped to a table with a creepily calm Clyde standing by his side. Clyde's got a video camera and all sorts of cutting tools, including a box cutter, which he informs his captive is for his - ahem - male parts. Clyde promises to remove every one of the man's limbs.

He doesn't break thepromise.

Again, so far so good for "Citizen." Gray's movie is dark, violent, sickening, and yet somehow it is easy to root for Clyde. Sure, he's torturing and murdering folks, but they kind of deserve it, right?

Things quickly get whacky in "Citizen," though. What starts out as somewhat implausible (folks getting picked off in very creative and bloody ways) turns out to be just plain goofy when the big twist is revealed. Clyde, at first easy to root for, gets more and more carried away killing people who seem less and less deserving of his wrath. Butler's Scottish accent makes random, if subtle, appearances too. I suppose that last one is a relatively minor complaint.

The biggest problem with "Citizen" is its finale. Without playing spoiler, let's just say the chronology doesn't make any sense. In fact, the sequence of events struck me as impossible.

Perhaps that's only fitting, though. After the first half hour or so, "Citizen" loses whatever loose grip it had on reality to begin with. Sadly, whatever message Gary is trying to get across about the legal system is lost early on as well.

Make of it what you can.

• Check out Crason's movie blog at www.juneaublogger.com/movies.