EVROPSKI UNIVERZITET BRČKO

PEDAGOŠKI FAKULTET

ODSJEK: Razredna nastava sa defektologijom

PREDMET: Engleski jezik

My favourite film

Profesor: Student:

Doc.dr. Valentina Budinčić Nermina Starčević

Brčko, decembar 2019.

 Contents

1. Introduction...............................................................................3
2. Main part....................................................................................4
2.1. Plot..............................................................................................................................4
2.2. Actors...........................................................................................................................6
2.3. About the actors..........................................................................................................7
2.3.1. Jamie Foxx..............................................................................................................7
2.3.2. Gerard Butler..........................................................................................................8
2.4. Interesting facts...........................................................................................................9
3. Conclusion................................................................................10
4. Bibliography.............................................................................11

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 1. Introduction

My favourite film is Law Abiding Citizen. Itꞌs an American action

thriller film written by Kurt Wimmer. The film was made in 2009 and is
directed by F. Gary Gray. Law Abiding Citizen was released theatrically in
North America on October 16, 2009. The film took second place in its
opening weekend and went on to gross $126.6 million in total worldwide.

It stars Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx and takes place in

Philadelphia, telling the story of a man driven to seek justice while
targeting not only his familyꞌs killer but also those who have supported a
corrupt criminal justice system, intending to assassinate anyone
supporting the system.

The film is nominated for a Saturn Award as the Best Action/

Adventure/Thriller Film of the year and also garnered NAACP Image
Awards nominations for both Jamie Foxx (Outstanding Actor in a Motion
Picture) and F. Gary Gray (Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture).

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 2. Main part

2.1. Plot
In a Philadelphia home invasion, Clarence Darby rapes and kills the
wife and daughter of Clyde Shelton, who is forced to watch. Prosecuting
Attorney Nick Rice is unable to securely convict Darby. Unwilling to take a
chance on lowering his high conviction rate, he makes a deal with Darby,
who pleads guilty to a lesser charge and receives a reduced sentence in
exchange for testifying against his accomplice Rupert Ames. Ames only
intended to steal goods from Shelton and flee, and was unaware of
Darby's plan to rape and kill Shelton's wife and daughter. Ames is
convicted and sentenced to death, while Darby is released after a few
years. Clyde feels betrayed by Rice's actions and the justice system.

Ten years later, Ames is executed. Unknown to the prosecutors and

witnesses, the drug usually used has been replaced with an
anticonvulsant, causing Ames to die painfully. Evidence implicates Darby.
An anonymous caller alerts Darby as the police draw near and directs him
to a remote location. Clyde, disguised as a police officer, reveals himself
as the caller and paralyzes Darby with tetrodotoxin. He straps Darby to a
table and video records himself dismembering Darby. When Darby's
remains are found, evidence ties his death to Clyde. Clyde willingly
surrenders and goes to prison.

Rice learns his wife and daughter have been sent the
dismemberment video and are traumatized by it. He initially refuses a
plea bargain with Clyde, but District Attorney Jonas Cantrell orders Rice to
make a deal. Clyde demands a new bed in his cell in exchange for a
"confession". In court, Clyde represents himself and successfully argues
he should be granted bail, then berates the judge for accepting the legal
precedent he cited, believing her too easily convinced, and too eager to let

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madmen and murderers back on the street. The judge denies bail to
Clyde.

Clyde demands steak lunch and a music player to be delivered to his

cell by a specific time, in return for telling where to find Darby's lawyer,
who was reported missing. Rice agrees, though the lunch is delayed by a
few minutes by the warden's security measures. Once he has his meal,
which he shares with a cellmate, Clyde provides a set of coordinates
where Rice and the others find Darby's lawyer, buried alive but suffocated
by time-mechanized materials while Clyde's lunch was delayed. As loud
music plays in Clyde's cell, he proceeds to kill his cellmate, forcing the
warden to secure him in solitary confinement.

Cantrell arranges a meeting with a CIA contact and brings Rice.

They learn Clyde previously worked with the agency, creating imaginative
assassination devices and orchestrated lethal tactics against nearly
impossible targets. They are warned Clyde can kill anyone anytime he
wishes. During a meeting with Rice and Cantrell, the judge dies from an
explosive device hidden in her cell phone. Clyde demands all charges
against him to be dropped or he will "kill everyone". Rice takes
precautionary measures instead. After Clyde's deadline passes, a number
of Rice's assistants die from car bombs. Rice meets with Clyde in private
and beats him. Clyde tells Rice that he is just beginning to destroy the
system and all who believe in it. Leaving the funeral of a colleague,
Cantrell is killed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot. The mayor puts
the city on lockdown and promotes Rice to acting District Attorney.

Rice learns that Clyde owns an auto garage near the prison. A tunnel
leads to a room full of guns, disguises, and other equipment below the
solitary confinement cells, with secret entrances to each cell. He and
Police Detective Dunnigan realize that Clyde wanted to be in solitary
confinement all along; this allows him to easily leave the prison without
detection, carry out his murders while misleading the police, who have
assumed his murders have been the work of accomplices. Evidence points

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to Clyde's next target, City Hall, where the mayor is holding an emergency
meeting. Rice and his men cannot find Clyde but discover evidence
pointing to a cell-phone-activated suitcase bomb in the room directly
below the meeting.

Clyde returns to his cell. He is surprised to find Rice waiting for him.
Clyde suggests another deal, but Rice says he no longer makes deals with
murderers, thanking Clyde for teaching him that. Rice warns him not do
anything he will regret, but Clyde's cell phone is ready to be dialed to
activate the City Hall bomb. When Clyde dials the phone, Rice leaves
immediately. Clyde realizes too late that Rice has moved the bomb to his
cell, which is now sealed. Clyde holds his daughter's bracelet, accepting
his fate as the bomb explodes, killing him.

The epilogue shows Rice watching his daughter in a musical stage

performance, an activity for which he previously had difficulty finding
time.

2.2. Actors

 Jamie Foxx as Nicholas "Nick" Rice

 Gerard Butler as Clyde Alexander Shelton
 Colm Meaney as Detective Dunnigan
 Bruce McGill as Jonas Cantrell
 Leslie Bibb as Sarah Lowell
 Michael Irby as Detective Garza
 Gregory Itzin as Warden Iger
 Regina Hall as Kelly Rice
 Emerald-Angel Young as Denise Rice
 Christian Stolte as Clarence James Darby
 Annie Corley as Judge Laura Burch
 Richard Portnow as Bill Reynolds
 Viola Davis as Mayor April Henry
 Michael Kelly as Bray
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 Josh Stewart as Rupert Ames
 Roger Bart as Brian Bringham

2.3. About the actors

2.3.1. Jamie Foxx

Eric Marlon Bishop known professionally as Jamie Foxx is born on

December 13, 1967. He  is an American actor, singer, comedian,
presenter, and producer. Foxx initially became known for his portrayal
of Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical film Ray, for which he won
the Academy Award, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, Critics' Choice
Movie Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. That same year, he
was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his
role in the crime film Collateral.

Other acting roles include Staff Sergeant Sykes in Jarhead, record

executive Curtis Taylor Jr. in Dreamgirls, Detective Ricardo Tubbs in TV
series Miami Vice, the title role in the film Django Unchained, the
supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Will Stacks in Annie,
and gangster Bats/Leon Jefferson III in Baby Driver. Foxx also starred in
the sketch comedy show In Living Color and his own television sitcom The
Jamie Foxx Show (1996–2001), in which he played Jamie King Jr.

Jaime Foxx is also a Grammy Award-winning musician, producing

four albums: Unpredictable, Intuition, Best Night of My Life and
Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses.

His most famous movies are:

 Ray,  Horrible Bosses,

 Collateral,  Django Unchained,
 Law Abiding Citizen,  Horrible Bosses 2,
 The Soloist,  Sleepless,
 Robin Hood

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2.3.2. Gerard Butler

Gerard James Butler is born on November 13, 1969. He is Scottish

actor and film producer. After studying law, Butler turned to acting in the
mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as Mrs Brown, the James
Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, and Tale of the Mummy. He starred
as Dracula in the horror film Dracula 2000.

He was cast as the role of Erik, The Phantom in Joel Schumacher's

2004 film adaptation of the musical The Phantom of the Opera. That role
earned him a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actor. Butler gained
worldwide recognition for his portrayal of King Leonidas in fantasy war
film 300. That role earned him nominations for an Empire Award for Best
Actor and a Saturn Award for Best Actor and a win for MTV Movie Award
for Best Fight.

In the 2010s, he voiced the role of Stoick the Vast in the animated
action-fantasy film How to Train Your Dragon, a role he later reprised
in Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon, Gift of the Night Fury, How to
Train Your Dragon 2, and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
Also in the 2010s, he portrayed Secret Service agent Mike Banning in the
action thriller trilogy Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, and Angel
Has Fallen.

His most famous films are:

 Dracula 2000,  The Bounty Hunter,
 The Phantom of the Opera,  Olympus Has Fallen,
 300,  London Has Fallen,
 Butterfly on a Wheel,  Den of Thieves,
 Law Abiding Citizen,  Angel Has Fallen.
 The Ugly Truth,

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2.4. Interesting facts

While Gerard Butler was originally signed and announced to play the

role of Nick Rice, there are stories about how Jamie Foxx took on that role
and Butler was re-cast as Clyde Shelton. In one version, Foxx called the
producers and asked if Butler would like to play Clyde Shelton instead, as
he liked the role of Nick. When the producers approached Butler about
playing Clyde, he thought about it for a second and reportedly said "Jamie
as Nick and me as Clyde? That would be awesome!" However, Butler also
said in an interview that he suggested the role switch between himself and
Foxx.

Gerard Butler's character uses the line: "It's not what you know,
it's what you can prove in court". This is the same line Denzel
Washington uses in Training Day minus the "in court".

 In the scene where the Mayor (Viola Davis) is swearing in Nick as
the new District Attorney, the man holding the Bible is the actual mayor of
Philadelphia at the time of filming.

As the police are heading to Clyde's house after he tortures and

murders Darby, Clyde is shown working on a set of wings. In Greek
mythology, Daedelus constructs a set of wax wings, which his son Icarus
uses to fly. Icarus flies higher and higher, eventually flying so close to the
Sun that the wings melt, sending him plummeting to his death. This
mirrors Clyde's escalation of revenge against the justice system, which
eventually leads to his death as a result of his own ambition and a device
of his own design (a bomb).

During the scene where Clyde shares dinner with his cellmate, his
iPod is playing "Eminence Front" by The Who. It's a song about people
pretending to be something they're not, just as Clyde is both overall,
pretending he's unable to escape and specifically being nice to his
cellmate right before killing him.

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 3. Conclusion

I love this film, a lot of people will say it's not great, but it's really
enjoyable. I like it when they manage to turn a killer into someone you
can sympathize with. Clyde was made a bad guy by a system which is real
and could impact any one of us. There are people out there who would do
this to your family in real life, and there's a legal system just waiting to
put them in a nice warm cell for a few years, then let them out.
This is the film that made me look forward to every Gerard Butler's
film. It's a true masterpiece and the actors are great especially Gerard
Butler, he is playing his role so perfect. He planned everything for years,
organized it and brought it into action. The script is great and shows how
easy criminals can avoid justice with a good lawyers and deals. While this
is fiction, the protagonist and this movie define so beautifully and
truthfully the way the justice system operates in reality.
I hated Jamie Foxx's character in this movie. Because of his self
centeredness he caused all the people he worked with to die and because
he thought he was making the right choices, he was really making the
wrong choices. Clyde's character is a true example for what a lot of people
go through in the justice system. Losing family members and not getting
the proper justice because of a corrupt and sad system. Clyde's morals
weren't necessarily right but when you take a man's family they put their
morals aside and just want a little bit of their own justice.

The ending is what ruined this film for me but his whole thing was to
prove a point to the system by making sure everyone is held accountable
including himself.

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 4. Bibliography

1. https://www.imdb.com

2. https://www.britannica.com

3. https://lawabidingcitizenfilm.com

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