The movie portrays Clyde Shelton as some kind of engineer/ex-CIA-type. I guess you could quantify “Law Abiding Citizen” as a cross between a serial killer movie and “The Next Three Days,” starring Russell Crowe, except this time the protagonist is a genius instead of an everyman. The condemnation of ‘broken’ justice is on display here, and I’m sure you can see where this is going. The accomplice gets the death penalty while the real culprit cuts a deal and is freed. The film opens by showing his wife and child brutally murdered by two perpetrators. But what he does, oddly, is present a serial killer (Clyde Shelton) who thinks he’s a victim, and the story works because in so many ways he is. “Law Abiding Citizen” was ripe for yet another entry into the torture porn genre, landing smack dab in the middle of the “Saw” craze. Gary Gary for his treatment of the material here (written by Kurt Wimmer of “Equilibrium” fame). At any rate, with a top-notch cast and interesting premise, “Law Abiding Citizen” entertains, even if it doesn’t fully transcend. If anything, it shows how far the Legal System has come from endorsing ‘an eye for an eye’ ideology. Gary Gary (“The Italian Job”), provides an interesting moral dilemma, one which allows you to follow its joint protagonist/antagonist down a rabbit hole of murder and mayhem and almost make you sympathize with him. But I have to admit, Gerard Butler’s Clyde Shelton makes a pretty good case. When a movie is called “ Law Abiding Citizen,” you can be pretty sure the film you’re about to see will be about anything but.