Law Abiding Citizen (2009) Poster

Parents Guide

Add to guide
Showing all 38 items

Certification

Edit
MPAA Rated R for strong bloody brutal violence and torture, a scene of rape, and pervasive language
Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • In the beginning, a man is shown pulling down a woman's pants, forced but nothing else is shown.
  • A woman's buttocks is seen as she lies on a mattress in her underwear.
  • In a sequence, the main character removes all of his clothing, but the scene is dark, and only his bare chest and full backside are shown. He is seen shirtless shortly after too, in bright light.

Violence & Gore

  • A man answers the door to see two thugs entering the house. One of them lifts an incapacitated woman's skirt (she is lying on the floor with an abdominal stab wound) and rapes her: we see the skirt lift, he moves as though he is lowering his pants and we see him later out of breath and sweaty; her young daughter watches, she is then carried away and presumably raped as well. A man strikes a woman, she falls to the floor, he stabs her slowly in the abdomen, she screams, and he wipes blood off the blade onto her sweater.
  • A man takes a gun from under a sofa cushion, runs out of his apartment and onto the roof, fires at police cars and officers in the street and runs along rooftops to escape. A man punches another man in the face repeatedly (we see his bloody mouth and face). A man takes a police officer's gun, forces him to drive in his car, and then strikes him on the head knocking him unconscious.
  • A man holds a gun at a man and threatens to shoot him; he pulls the trigger, we hear a crunch and the man stands motionless (a pufferfish poison known as neurotoxin has been injected into his hand from the handle of the gun paralyzing him but he could feel any bit of pain).
  • An intruder picks up a young girl who has watched him rape and kill her mother and wound her father and we understand that he rapes and kills her (we do not see any violence toward the girl).
  • A young girl watches a video of a man using a power saw to cut another man's leg off (we see the girl's terror stricken face and hear the saw whirring).
  • A man sets a bomb in a city hall about to explode it thinking that it will explode, the bomb gets tunneled back from the cart into the solitary cell. The diffuser is locked and that makes it explode resulting in the man being engulfed in flames and the whole solitary building isolates.
  • There is a scene where a man is receiving the death sentence via lethal injection. A man is strapped onto a table and prepared for lethal injection, the IV fluids begin to enter his body, the man thrashes and screams, his veins push against his flesh, blood seeps into his shirt and he falls motionless.
  • In a sequence, a man is prepared for torture by another man. He's tied up and paralyzed, and gets several injections. Something is put in his mouth so he doesn't bite his tongue. The other man begins the torture by cutting his leg and blood spurts. The man muffled screams, but this is offscreen, and the scene ends there. Later, his corpse is shown cut in different pieces, having been severed with different objects (saw, knife, cutter, etc.) We then see a bucket filled with blood, and more blood dripping into it, then we see the torso of a man with jagged cuts at the waist and bloody wounds where the arms had been, as well as a lot of blood on the floor and table around the remains.
  • A man calms his cellmate down with food. Approaches him and stabs his cellmate in the jugular repeatedly using a T-bone from a steak; blood spurts and sprays all over every time he pushes the bone on it. Both men and the room are covered in blood and the man uses his i-Pod playing heavy metal music to cover up the alarm after the stabbing. The prisoners scream and the walls and pillows are all covered with blood (Very brutal).
  • Several cops from a helicopter arrive at a scene quickly. A trapdoor opens in the ground and we see a man sitting inside a box, handcuffed and with an oxygen mask on his face (he is dead). We learn that dies of suffocation after his oxygen tank runs out of air. His dirt corpse is pulled out onto a stretcher.
  • Four cars stall on a cemetery road, an unknown man opens a bomb diffuser like box which controls a remote-controlled robot. He shuts one the car's electricity down and arms the machine. The robot points toward the SUV and the large gun fries many rounds into the cars (we see the occupants rendered bullet riddled and bloody, and one car is shot with a grenade that explodes and is thrown into the air).
  • A picture of a corpse is briefly seen as being part of crime photo's. Not graphic
  • A man is punched several times in the face, then spits blood.
  • Several cars in a parking lot explode and we see flames and the cars are thrown into the air: a woman struggles to get out of her car as cars around her explode, and then her car explodes (we see it engulfed inflames but we do not see her in flames).
  • While two men talk to a judge, the judge answers her cell phone, it suddenly explodes with shrapnel and blows a hole in her head (blood sprays and pools under her head on the floor where she falls) (This scene is very unexpected and it will make the viewer jump)

Profanity

  • 5 asses (1 used with "hole")
  • 'D*mn' is said three times.
  • 'H*ll' is said twice.
  • 'Sh*t' is said 18 times.
  • 'Balls' is said once, and 2 of 'penis' is said twice in an anatomical context.
  • 2 slang terms using male genitals ("d*ck" and "pr*ck")
  • 4 uses of "Jesus Christ," 3 of "Jesus" and 1 use of "For Christ's sakes."
  • Massive amount of profanities.
  • 'F*ck' is said 57 times, including derivatives, and once it is mouth only.

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • A man snorts a line of cocaine
  • Some drugs are seen in a man's apartment and on a woman's bed.
  • A beer bottle is shown for a few seconds.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • The film's violence is Very brutal
  • The torture and the aftermath are shown in bloody detail
  • This movie is focused on violence, murder, revenge, and one man's twisted sense of justice.
  • People bothered by violence and sickened by torture might find some scenes disturbing.
  • The death of a certain woman is very sudden, unexpected, intense, and graphic.

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Violence & Gore

  • A man says, "I kill everyone." One man tells another man, "I'm gonna split your skull in two." A man says of another man, "If he wants you dead, you are dead." A man describes in detail how he cut pieces off a man's body. Two men argue bitterly. A man tells another man that the prosecution "Will tear you apart."
  • The violence is frequent, fundamental and strong in this movie, but usually not very graphic. However, several scenes are more intense and graphic in the director's cut.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • A man's home is invaded by armed burglars in a frightening sequence where he is beaten, stabbed, gagged, tied up, and forced to watch the murder of his wife and daughter (mostly off-screen) while he screams and cries. It is heavily implied that the man's wife was also raped. The film opens with this scene and is very unexpected and disturbing despite little to no blood being shown.

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


Recently Viewed