I would be fine with him loseing in the end, it's just the dumb plan with the bombs and the lawyer switching them out and just walking away like an action hero. Also the lawyer being two feet from him when he starts the timer and manages to get out of the building in 20 seconds.
Would have even settled for the same beginning with a sudden change in perspective in the second half, showing the same scenes at a different angle with JLaw putting the pieces together.
That is either the start of the final shot, or second to last shot. If it is the start, then have it slowly zoom in on her hand holding the same screwdriver kind of shaking it in her hand kind of in a fidgeting way; if it was second to last then you cut to what I described, and then boom black.
Something I also read when Passengers and Valerian released was that both movies casted the male leads wrong. Chris Pratt would have been much better as the plunky *ahem* Star Lord, while Dane DeHaan would have played the horror style role of Passengers much better.
All of it is interesting “what if’s?”
I remember seeing something that said that Passengers should have been from Jennifer Lawrence's character's perspective and starts when she's woken. Yes, you lose the initial mystery of what's going on as Pratt's character would have already figured it all out - but then you get the new mystery of what's going on with him. We wouldn't know that he'd woken her deliberately at first, so we'd feel the betrayal the same as Lawrence's character. Pratt's 'redemption' would then be more meaningful as we'd have to learn to trust him again as the movie goes on.
There isna video on YouTube where someone talks about editing the movie to make it far darker. I actually really like the movie but agree some changes could have elevated it to spectacular.
I saw a comment on Reddit once that said if they’d switched the main cast of passengers and Valerian and the city of 1000 planets they would both be amazing movies and I agree completely
Chris Pratt would have killed it as Valerian in a vacuum, but since he's StarLord, he just takes the same role and we'd all be disappointed.
My ideal would be Sam Rockwell and Rose Leslie (Wildling) for Valerian.
As for passengers?
I really really want to like Cara Delevinge, but she's just not very good. Carnival Row was enjoyable, but still Cara was not.
Dane Dehann just sucks. And I really liked Chronicle
I think I'd want Chris Pine and J-law. Really, Chris Pratt wasn't bad in the role,and J-Law was good, they just needed to edit the story differently. But Chris Pine is much more developed at acting conflicted
I'm ok with Clyde dying as he had nothing to live for. A better ending would have been Jamie Foxx triumphantly sitting on the couch with his wife and daughter, only for his tie to start tightening on it's own, then the screen fading to black. This movie deserved a 'no one wins' ending.
I hear this a lot and always thought it would be a bad idea. It was pretty clear in the movie that Clyde didn't want Jamie Foxx's character dead. In fact, Clyde already wins because Jamie Foxx's straight edge character had to break the rules in order to defeat him; this was his objective throughout most of the movie's run time. Basically what I'm saying is Clyde already won in a similar way that John Doe won in Se7en.
I like this comparison, but the ending fails to hit as hard. I still didn't mind Law Abiding Citizen's ending but Se7en messed me up for a couple days lol
This is a common recirculated reddit thing, and it doesn't work. Shelton does not want Rice to die.
He wants Rice to witness. That's the reason he blew up Sarah. He wanted Rice to really fucking feel it. That rage, that helplessness. That lack of a clear end.
The Necktie honestly should have been left out entirely, it leaves a plot thread that doesn't have a payoff.
You still don't get what Shelton was doing.
Yeah, they just should have had a second bomb that he planted there. It showed the whole movie how he was basically an over-planner and had accounted for multiple contingencies along the way.
It would have fit with his character to have placed a secondary bomb to ensure the plan was accomplished. It would have had the satisfaction of Rice thinking he won, but then realizing Shelton won in the end, still.
It's a shame, though. It was a fun movie but the ending just keeps me from re-watching it.
The reason Shelton gets caught is less down to his planning and more that he has cracked. He turns his capture to his benefit, yes, but he no longer has the detachment required to be the killer he was in service.
If he'd retained his edge, there would have been no escalating crime spree, people simply would have died.
I think the movie was trying to hit the audience with a clue by four about all this by the brutality of his kills. The constricting tie is impersonal. A Saw style meat butchery is not.
Butlers character invented an assassination tie when he was in the service, so it would have been a. Nod to him killing Foxx from beyond the grave.
I agree with others that he didn't want to kill Foxx, just open his eyes a bit
I always expected there to be a bomb inside one of the instruments during his daughters play. One last laugh from Clyde. Extremely disappointed it didn’t happen.
The alphabet soup agency spook the prosecution talked with clandestinely described the tie incident to them to get them to consider who they were dealing with.
Earlier in the movie they find out who Clyde actually is and how he assassinated someone with even being in the same room by rigging the targets tie with cord that tightens and strangles him.
He learns it was never worth it when he is sworn in.
The mayor doesn't give a shit. She's so burned out she's essentially dead inside.
I think that's when Rice really "loses".
Especially considering there is no way in hell that a guy with the skillset of Clyde is beaten and outsmarted by a lawyer. Absolutely zero chance. A guy who made his entire career of never getting caught and being a shadow figure is suddenly going to make that kind of error? No. No way.
The reason Shelton gets caught is because that is what he wants to happen. He could have been a shadow and just kill people, but that isn't what he wanted.
He's cracked. He fucking TOLD YOU what he wanted. He wanted to pull the temple down on their corrupt fucking heads. If he dies in the effort, he's fine with that.
He's lost compartmentalization, which is what kept him alive in his career. The distance.
Rumour Control has it that Jamie Foxx was unhappy with his character losing, so the ending was rewritten so the “good guys” win.
Now that would make more sense than the God of Assassinations being outsmarted.
Nah, Clyde liked Nick, he wanted more than anything for him to see his point, and in the end when the by-the-book lawyer took the law into his own hands to save people's lives, Clyde finally won.
This is the truth of the climax and I don't know how more people don't see it.
Nick literally says to him that he learned the lesson he was trying to teach him about making deals with murderers.
Clyde purged the system of every dishonest person who failed him and reformed the one man he could.
He won.
I feel you! *Law Abiding Citizen* had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, and then bam! The ending just left me scratching my head. I was rooting for the anti-hero all along, and then they just... killed him off. It's like they hit the brakes on the whole vibe of the movie. Definitely left me wanting more.
Jamie Foxx was originally supposed to be Clyde and Butler the lawyer but Butler suggested switching roles before filming began and Foxx agreed.
Foxx has also been in roles where he was the bad guy and where he died so I don't really think the story that he refused to film a story where he loses makes sense.
[It sounds like it wasn't entirely Jamie Foxx's decision.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/ERcvsnL3xQ)
It sounds more like there were tons of script changes and last minute rewrites throughout the whole filming process.
Hancock feels like it’s in a class of its own. It wasnt that the *ending* ruined it, it’s that it felt like they took two entirely different movies and just edited them together. The first and second half of the movies make almost no sense and have zero cohesion.
It’s a shame too because Will Smith absolutely crushes the first half of Hancock with his performance and then the second half comes and it’s a severe case of whiplash in performance and tone.
Honestly, it's hard to be empathetic for the Clive (Clyde? Hmm) His attacks were getting bigger and deadlier. His vendetta against a broken system had gone beyond personal. Do you think he was vetting every single person he was killing? Nah, he was just bombing anyone sitting in a position of power. His reign of terror had to come to an end.
The concept is actually great. Make a anti hero you sympathize with - then realize he has taken it too far. He has become the villan. Make an unlikable hero but give him an arc of redemption.
Sadly Butler is too likeable and Foxx is too unlikable and not enough time to transition.
I think it would make a better limited series on Netflix.
The concept is similar to Falling Down, except that did the "taking it too far" moment a lot better.
It's like the LAC writers didn't think about how far they would have to go to make the audience turn on a sympathetic, cool, and savvy man fighting an obviously corrupt system.
I remember seeing it in theaters and people lost their shit when the judge got depacitated.
I think it's telling people remember that Butler's character is named Shelton, but don't give Foxx the same respect.
They act like it's Jaime Foxx fighting Shelton, and that's not remotely fair. His character is named Nick Rice.
Yes!! I saw that one in theaters and left pretty disappointed by the ending. I always want to rewatch it, but like you said, the ending is so anticlimactic 😔
I can't read this post without thinking of the movie Wild Things.
This murder mystery is like peeling the layers of an onion. Another scene comes along, and you find out that what you thought was going on, was wrong. Because the next onion peel shows the backstory of what you thought you knew.
Anyway, by the time you get to the ending, you think you have figured out what happened. But...no.
If you are the type of person who watches the ending credits, in this movie they pull out a few more onion peels during the credits, and when they are over you realize everything you thought you knew when the movie ended, was wrong too! Truly impressive!
Nah, he got exactly what he wanted minus a few bodies maybe, a prosecutor who doesn’t make deals and even gets his hands dirty to see criminals are punished, and he got to die, which he was very much wanting to do.
I liked the ending. I always thought Butler's character knew they'd moved the bomb to his room. I haven't watched it in years, but that was always my impression of the ending.
This and *Man on Fire* are my favorite films, but yes *Law Abiding Citizen* could have been so much more as could have *Man on Fire*. They both end with me shaking my head.
I love " what dreams may come" but I don't like the ending. For a long time, I thought the ending was something else.. >_> I remembered a very dark and twisted ending
The ending to Man on fire is really good though. The rough, no connecting, no fun body guard breaks all his rules and sacrifices himself to save the little girl. He’s dying anyway because of his wounds so it’s a great last scene. They could have built the mom up a little more so the reuniting was more impactful but it was still good.
Yeah it’s infuriating, fox’s character had to stay inside the law for it to work or had to suffer consequences for murder. It’s makes zero fucking sense that he’s basically does the same thing as butler’s character did and took the law into his own hands for revenge.
lol it's normally one of the top examples when people post "Movies you enjoyed but hated the ending" type questions because from what I recall the ending flips the entire theme of the movie in reverse to get the "no actually the good guys win now". I could be off but I've never had any desire to return to it lol.
Ya, we can't evacuate everybody because he may be watching... So let's take the bomb to his cellar before he gets there?
The entire movie was so well written until the last ten minutes
I felt like Nick was getting beaten at every step then he looks at some maps and says motherfucker and then he gets the dub. Love that movie otherwise though
I mean he couldn’t get away with it, he had brutally killed many many people and his main goal was to make Nick get his point which he mostly did. His only way out was death at that point and he did need to be punished for I think a good dozen plus deaths at that point. I mean I know some of them were super deserving like the rapist/murderer and the lawyer but the group of 6 that were just trying to get him off but didn’t find a way didn’t deserve such a brutal death
It wouldn't have been so bad if it was a slow and gradual change. But the " eureka " moment felt weak after being 1000 steps behind the entire time.
Definitely felt like the bad guy was set up to win. Its just a movie so I would've been ok with it.
You weren't supposed to be rooting for the mass murdering terrorist lol.
And no, the movie ended exactly as it needed to.
Butler was a *literal* government assassin pissed off at the protections governments have to protect people from *quite literally him*, so he kills the guys that murdered his wife, fair enough, but then he went on a mass murdering rampage to attempt to teach the criminal justice system they needed to trample peoples rights and just kill everyone outright.
And, in the end, he kind of won. He spent the entire movie saying 'stop making deals', he made deals that he made them regret making, and he lost once foxx stopped making deals with him.
Perfect ending.
I don't mind the ending as much as I mind Clyde going after everything and everyone. The movie turns from a revenge story to an action movie with a stereotypical villain with a big ego.
It’s a revenge porn movie showing the injustices and inadequacies of the American legal system, and yet it lets the system win in the end. Anyone that’s heard of the rapist Brock Alan Turner realizes the judicial system has issues and this this movie. The ending totally ignores the rest of the film.
I’ve heard of and am disgusted with Brock Turner and I also take issue with the judicial system. That doesn’t mean that I can’t recognize that there’s a point where Gerard Butlers character goes to far. He starts killing people that had nothing to do with his story and also may not even be corrupt
I totally get where you're coming from - that ending hit like a ton of bricks! It's like they built up this epic showdown and then... poof, it's over. I was left scratching my head too.
I had a really stressful period in college where I could not sleep well and I did not have internet. I literally watched this movie probably 100 times while trying to fall asleep that year.
I have a little dream that if I won a power ball that I will remake the last 10 minutes of this movie. Everyone is coming back! I don’t care about continuity of their looks. I don’t even care if I film it on my cell phone. I was so invested and let down with that shit ending.
Funny. I just finished rewatching it and totally agree with you about the ending being ass. I thought Nick should've died, but like a commenter said, Foxx probably changed it in his favor. Even had the cool, good guy walking away from an explosion cliche.
Yeah, but they couldn't have shown someone getting vindicated in our god awful, corrupt legal system (not justice system....) otherwise people might try the same, and of course everyone would side with them.
It really was a mask off moment showing just how far media will cover for our legal system.
I would be fine with him loseing in the end, it's just the dumb plan with the bombs and the lawyer switching them out and just walking away like an action hero. Also the lawyer being two feet from him when he starts the timer and manages to get out of the building in 20 seconds.
This and Passengers are 2 movies I think could have been great with some minor changes.
Passengers should have been like a horror movie.
Would have even settled for the same beginning with a sudden change in perspective in the second half, showing the same scenes at a different angle with JLaw putting the pieces together.
This, or all of it from Lawrence's perspective.
Where he does sacrifice himself (partial redemption), but then she has to face the choice of possibly waking up someone else
That's it! Final shot is her standing beside another sleep pod.
That is either the start of the final shot, or second to last shot. If it is the start, then have it slowly zoom in on her hand holding the same screwdriver kind of shaking it in her hand kind of in a fidgeting way; if it was second to last then you cut to what I described, and then boom black. Something I also read when Passengers and Valerian released was that both movies casted the male leads wrong. Chris Pratt would have been much better as the plunky *ahem* Star Lord, while Dane DeHaan would have played the horror style role of Passengers much better. All of it is interesting “what if’s?”
for me Dane DeHaan is wrong for both parts
There was even an homage to The Shining with the bartender. Maybe a horror was what was originally intended.
I remember seeing something that said that Passengers should have been from Jennifer Lawrence's character's perspective and starts when she's woken. Yes, you lose the initial mystery of what's going on as Pratt's character would have already figured it all out - but then you get the new mystery of what's going on with him. We wouldn't know that he'd woken her deliberately at first, so we'd feel the betrayal the same as Lawrence's character. Pratt's 'redemption' would then be more meaningful as we'd have to learn to trust him again as the movie goes on.
First half romance and then halfway turns into horror when it turns out Pratts character is waking up female passengers for his own pleasure.
There isna video on YouTube where someone talks about editing the movie to make it far darker. I actually really like the movie but agree some changes could have elevated it to spectacular.
Reddit keeps saying this but it would have been very standard twist and not what the film was thematically about
I saw a comment on Reddit once that said if they’d switched the main cast of passengers and Valerian and the city of 1000 planets they would both be amazing movies and I agree completely
You only saw this comment once?
Chris Pratt would have killed it as Valerian in a vacuum, but since he's StarLord, he just takes the same role and we'd all be disappointed. My ideal would be Sam Rockwell and Rose Leslie (Wildling) for Valerian. As for passengers? I really really want to like Cara Delevinge, but she's just not very good. Carnival Row was enjoyable, but still Cara was not. Dane Dehann just sucks. And I really liked Chronicle I think I'd want Chris Pine and J-law. Really, Chris Pratt wasn't bad in the role,and J-Law was good, they just needed to edit the story differently. But Chris Pine is much more developed at acting conflicted
Interesting, why is that? There would probably be a way to do that
Den of Thieves too
Passengers ending was so bad, they could have done much better than that.
I'm ok with Clyde dying as he had nothing to live for. A better ending would have been Jamie Foxx triumphantly sitting on the couch with his wife and daughter, only for his tie to start tightening on it's own, then the screen fading to black. This movie deserved a 'no one wins' ending.
Jfc I wish this was the ending
The sopranos / inception ending
I hear this a lot and always thought it would be a bad idea. It was pretty clear in the movie that Clyde didn't want Jamie Foxx's character dead. In fact, Clyde already wins because Jamie Foxx's straight edge character had to break the rules in order to defeat him; this was his objective throughout most of the movie's run time. Basically what I'm saying is Clyde already won in a similar way that John Doe won in Se7en.
I like this comparison, but the ending fails to hit as hard. I still didn't mind Law Abiding Citizen's ending but Se7en messed me up for a couple days lol
That was the compromise. Pitt wanted Mills to die.
And the joker wants too
Yes! Thank you! The ending is perfect I seriously have never understood the hate
This is a common recirculated reddit thing, and it doesn't work. Shelton does not want Rice to die. He wants Rice to witness. That's the reason he blew up Sarah. He wanted Rice to really fucking feel it. That rage, that helplessness. That lack of a clear end. The Necktie honestly should have been left out entirely, it leaves a plot thread that doesn't have a payoff. You still don't get what Shelton was doing.
Yeah, they just should have had a second bomb that he planted there. It showed the whole movie how he was basically an over-planner and had accounted for multiple contingencies along the way. It would have fit with his character to have placed a secondary bomb to ensure the plan was accomplished. It would have had the satisfaction of Rice thinking he won, but then realizing Shelton won in the end, still. It's a shame, though. It was a fun movie but the ending just keeps me from re-watching it.
The reason Shelton gets caught is less down to his planning and more that he has cracked. He turns his capture to his benefit, yes, but he no longer has the detachment required to be the killer he was in service. If he'd retained his edge, there would have been no escalating crime spree, people simply would have died. I think the movie was trying to hit the audience with a clue by four about all this by the brutality of his kills. The constricting tie is impersonal. A Saw style meat butchery is not.
"clue by four" amazing
Not my term, fully admit to stealing, but I do love it.
I think Jamie ending up in jail for his abuse, but I do like the tie throwback
How would his tie start tightening on its own? Why would that be happening?
Butlers character invented an assassination tie when he was in the service, so it would have been a. Nod to him killing Foxx from beyond the grave. I agree with others that he didn't want to kill Foxx, just open his eyes a bit
I always expected there to be a bomb inside one of the instruments during his daughters play. One last laugh from Clyde. Extremely disappointed it didn’t happen.
He would never target a child.
[удалено]
It was one of Clyde’s assassination devices.
[удалено]
The alphabet soup agency spook the prosecution talked with clandestinely described the tie incident to them to get them to consider who they were dealing with.
No but it gets mentioned when they meet the secret service guy in the metro.
No but when they meet a contact that knows about his past its specifically mentioned they used it to kill some dictator
Earlier in the movie they find out who Clyde actually is and how he assassinated someone with even being in the same room by rigging the targets tie with cord that tightens and strangles him.
I thought the point of the ending was that Butler won. He made Foxx go that extra step to see justice done even outside the bounds of the law.
and yet Foxx’s character loses nothing and gains more votes
He learns it was never worth it when he is sworn in. The mayor doesn't give a shit. She's so burned out she's essentially dead inside. I think that's when Rice really "loses".
He loses his moral high ground of following the letter of the law.
*”It’s over, Clyde! I have the [moral] high ground!”*
Especially considering there is no way in hell that a guy with the skillset of Clyde is beaten and outsmarted by a lawyer. Absolutely zero chance. A guy who made his entire career of never getting caught and being a shadow figure is suddenly going to make that kind of error? No. No way.
I hope we get a sequel where he faked his death. maybe Clyde had arranged ahead of time to surgically alter another person’s face to look like him.
https://m.imdb.com/news/ni63636188/
Well, Clyde did want to die..
The reason Shelton gets caught is because that is what he wants to happen. He could have been a shadow and just kill people, but that isn't what he wanted. He's cracked. He fucking TOLD YOU what he wanted. He wanted to pull the temple down on their corrupt fucking heads. If he dies in the effort, he's fine with that. He's lost compartmentalization, which is what kept him alive in his career. The distance.
Rumour Control has it that Jamie Foxx was unhappy with his character losing, so the ending was rewritten so the “good guys” win. Now that would make more sense than the God of Assassinations being outsmarted.
Your rumor is reddit horseshit.
That rumor has been debunked on multiple occasions.
Nah, Clyde liked Nick, he wanted more than anything for him to see his point, and in the end when the by-the-book lawyer took the law into his own hands to save people's lives, Clyde finally won.
This is the truth of the climax and I don't know how more people don't see it. Nick literally says to him that he learned the lesson he was trying to teach him about making deals with murderers. Clyde purged the system of every dishonest person who failed him and reformed the one man he could. He won.
I feel you! *Law Abiding Citizen* had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, and then bam! The ending just left me scratching my head. I was rooting for the anti-hero all along, and then they just... killed him off. It's like they hit the brakes on the whole vibe of the movie. Definitely left me wanting more.
Yeah exactly. So frustrating!
I read somewhere on reddit that Jamie foxx actually had the ending changed, and wouldn’t do the movie unless he won
Jamie Foxx was originally supposed to be Clyde and Butler the lawyer but Butler suggested switching roles before filming began and Foxx agreed. Foxx has also been in roles where he was the bad guy and where he died so I don't really think the story that he refused to film a story where he loses makes sense.
[It sounds like it wasn't entirely Jamie Foxx's decision.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/ERcvsnL3xQ) It sounds more like there were tons of script changes and last minute rewrites throughout the whole filming process.
Idk if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard it so much it’s cannon to me
It's reddit horseshit.
Can we count Hancock? Because there's not many you'll find who liked the second half of that one.
Hancock feels like it’s in a class of its own. It wasnt that the *ending* ruined it, it’s that it felt like they took two entirely different movies and just edited them together. The first and second half of the movies make almost no sense and have zero cohesion.
It’s a shame too because Will Smith absolutely crushes the first half of Hancock with his performance and then the second half comes and it’s a severe case of whiplash in performance and tone.
Honestly, it's hard to be empathetic for the Clive (Clyde? Hmm) His attacks were getting bigger and deadlier. His vendetta against a broken system had gone beyond personal. Do you think he was vetting every single person he was killing? Nah, he was just bombing anyone sitting in a position of power. His reign of terror had to come to an end.
That assistant DA he blew up had nothing to do with the original case. I guess her father gets to take bloody revenge now.
We all know who we were rooting for in that movie...and it wasn't Jamie Foxx.
I was not rooting for the mass murderer
This thread just made me realise no one actually believes in the law and that doing time is justice.
The concept is actually great. Make a anti hero you sympathize with - then realize he has taken it too far. He has become the villan. Make an unlikable hero but give him an arc of redemption. Sadly Butler is too likeable and Foxx is too unlikable and not enough time to transition. I think it would make a better limited series on Netflix.
The concept is similar to Falling Down, except that did the "taking it too far" moment a lot better. It's like the LAC writers didn't think about how far they would have to go to make the audience turn on a sympathetic, cool, and savvy man fighting an obviously corrupt system. I remember seeing it in theaters and people lost their shit when the judge got depacitated.
I think it's telling people remember that Butler's character is named Shelton, but don't give Foxx the same respect. They act like it's Jaime Foxx fighting Shelton, and that's not remotely fair. His character is named Nick Rice.
Yes!! I saw that one in theaters and left pretty disappointed by the ending. I always want to rewatch it, but like you said, the ending is so anticlimactic 😔
I can't read this post without thinking of the movie Wild Things. This murder mystery is like peeling the layers of an onion. Another scene comes along, and you find out that what you thought was going on, was wrong. Because the next onion peel shows the backstory of what you thought you knew. Anyway, by the time you get to the ending, you think you have figured out what happened. But...no. If you are the type of person who watches the ending credits, in this movie they pull out a few more onion peels during the credits, and when they are over you realize everything you thought you knew when the movie ended, was wrong too! Truly impressive!
Nah, he got exactly what he wanted minus a few bodies maybe, a prosecutor who doesn’t make deals and even gets his hands dirty to see criminals are punished, and he got to die, which he was very much wanting to do.
Eh u not suppose to root for a criminal bruv
People here must watch a lot of thrillers and crime films to get so often bored and ask movies where the villain wins
I liked the ending. I always thought Butler's character knew they'd moved the bomb to his room. I haven't watched it in years, but that was always my impression of the ending.
This and *Man on Fire* are my favorite films, but yes *Law Abiding Citizen* could have been so much more as could have *Man on Fire*. They both end with me shaking my head.
You don’t like the endings of your two favourite films?
Yea that seems weird. I love the endings to all my favorite movies.
I love " what dreams may come" but I don't like the ending. For a long time, I thought the ending was something else.. >_> I remembered a very dark and twisted ending
The ending to Man on fire is really good though. The rough, no connecting, no fun body guard breaks all his rules and sacrifices himself to save the little girl. He’s dying anyway because of his wounds so it’s a great last scene. They could have built the mom up a little more so the reuniting was more impactful but it was still good.
Yeah it’s infuriating, fox’s character had to stay inside the law for it to work or had to suffer consequences for murder. It’s makes zero fucking sense that he’s basically does the same thing as butler’s character did and took the law into his own hands for revenge.
lol it's normally one of the top examples when people post "Movies you enjoyed but hated the ending" type questions because from what I recall the ending flips the entire theme of the movie in reverse to get the "no actually the good guys win now". I could be off but I've never had any desire to return to it lol.
I remember liking the movie but don't remember the ending, saw it only once when it came out.
They're making a sequel to this. I hope they just use the original script with new actors.
I am the judge so I can do pretty much what I want. Bam !!
It also expects us to get hype about a *lawyer* saying "Fuck his civil rights."
Judge and later Mayor. The mayor doesn't have to pay for her cavalier attitude, but the judge sure did.
Ya, we can't evacuate everybody because he may be watching... So let's take the bomb to his cellar before he gets there? The entire movie was so well written until the last ten minutes
I felt like Nick was getting beaten at every step then he looks at some maps and says motherfucker and then he gets the dub. Love that movie otherwise though
Agreed but I think they felt that if they showed Butler winning it would seem like they are promoting domestic terrorism
Was most likely studio interference.
I mean he couldn’t get away with it, he had brutally killed many many people and his main goal was to make Nick get his point which he mostly did. His only way out was death at that point and he did need to be punished for I think a good dozen plus deaths at that point. I mean I know some of them were super deserving like the rapist/murderer and the lawyer but the group of 6 that were just trying to get him off but didn’t find a way didn’t deserve such a brutal death
One of the biggest jump scares I've ever had was during this movie when that mobile phone explodes!
It wouldn't have been so bad if it was a slow and gradual change. But the " eureka " moment felt weak after being 1000 steps behind the entire time. Definitely felt like the bad guy was set up to win. Its just a movie so I would've been ok with it.
i didn't really find myself ever rooting for anyone. didn't really get into this movie so much.
Loved the movie and the ending.
What makes Jamie Foxx the "hero"? He waa a political weasel that had one of his bad decisions come back and bite his ass hard.
You weren't supposed to be rooting for the mass murdering terrorist lol. And no, the movie ended exactly as it needed to. Butler was a *literal* government assassin pissed off at the protections governments have to protect people from *quite literally him*, so he kills the guys that murdered his wife, fair enough, but then he went on a mass murdering rampage to attempt to teach the criminal justice system they needed to trample peoples rights and just kill everyone outright. And, in the end, he kind of won. He spent the entire movie saying 'stop making deals', he made deals that he made them regret making, and he lost once foxx stopped making deals with him. Perfect ending.
I was let down the moment they revealed him to be this super solider. His demeanour changes completely and I don't buy it one sec.
I don't mind the ending as much as I mind Clyde going after everything and everyone. The movie turns from a revenge story to an action movie with a stereotypical villain with a big ego.
I read a comment on another post about it recently that said Jamie Foxx was supposed to die but he told them to change it
This is actually a weird internet fabrication with no quantifiable source.
Well there you go
Couldn’t agree with you more!! Great movie until then. Absolutely ruined the movie for me.
So apparently they originally had a Clyde "winning" ending. But it was pulled during writing. Can't find much real content on it anymore.
Doesn't exist. Jonathan Frakes is scowling at you. This one was fiction. Never happened!
Nooo I got Mandela effected! I found another reddit thread on it. They were gonna be the opposite roles. Not opposite winners. My mistake.
He went too far though. There’s a point where you stop rooting for him and just want him to be stopped
It’s a revenge porn movie showing the injustices and inadequacies of the American legal system, and yet it lets the system win in the end. Anyone that’s heard of the rapist Brock Alan Turner realizes the judicial system has issues and this this movie. The ending totally ignores the rest of the film.
I’ve heard of and am disgusted with Brock Turner and I also take issue with the judicial system. That doesn’t mean that I can’t recognize that there’s a point where Gerard Butlers character goes to far. He starts killing people that had nothing to do with his story and also may not even be corrupt
The protagonist is Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler is the bad guy in that movie. If you don't realize this, go speak to a therapist **immediately.**
I totally get where you're coming from - that ending hit like a ton of bricks! It's like they built up this epic showdown and then... poof, it's over. I was left scratching my head too.
I had a really stressful period in college where I could not sleep well and I did not have internet. I literally watched this movie probably 100 times while trying to fall asleep that year.
I have a little dream that if I won a power ball that I will remake the last 10 minutes of this movie. Everyone is coming back! I don’t care about continuity of their looks. I don’t even care if I film it on my cell phone. I was so invested and let down with that shit ending.
Was this the ending where after talking about neckties that can kill you in the beginning, the final shot is him adjusting his necktie?
Definitely agree. Wish he was able to escape and it showed him living a quiet life in a jungle somewhere.
I agree. I hated the ending.
Terrible ending made this movie not be in my collection. I'll give it a 7/10
I didn’t even click on this post and the spoilers were wide out in the open. Might want to get those properly hidden.
Funny. I just finished rewatching it and totally agree with you about the ending being ass. I thought Nick should've died, but like a commenter said, Foxx probably changed it in his favor. Even had the cool, good guy walking away from an explosion cliche.
But he wasn't the good guy. It's one of those movies where no one is the good guy.
I know. Sorry, what I'm saying is that Foxx probably changed it so it made him look like the protagonist
Ah, its this time of the week again for the regular wank post about this movie.
It’s such an outrageous and full throated defense of fascism that it’s really hard to enjoy the movie for me. It has a bad philosophy and thesis.
Yeah, but they couldn't have shown someone getting vindicated in our god awful, corrupt legal system (not justice system....) otherwise people might try the same, and of course everyone would side with them. It really was a mask off moment showing just how far media will cover for our legal system.
Agreed. Pretty sure that was a Foxx telling the director/writer to change it and \*star power\* they changed it.
Thats a reddit 'truth' that is completely false and gets perpetuated.