No one who saw Dracula 2000 would have guessed that 25 years later, the most successful film career wouldn\u2019t belong to Nathan Fillion, Jeri Ryan, or Omar Epps. Instead, it was a relatively unknown actor playing Dracula who became one of the world\u2019s most successful action stars.<\/p>\n
Gerard Butler started the century playing Dracula and Attila the Hun before breaking out in 300 and pivoting to the B-action movies that never make blockbuster money on the big screen, but set records on every streaming service. He did it again this month, when 2009\u2019s Law Abiding Citizen arrived on Netflix and debuted in the Top Ten.<\/p>\n
Gerard Butler\u2019s Twisted Path Of Revenge<\/strong><\/h3>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/6IKGi.bVou_D0aIJXchCFQ--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/giant_freakin_robot_articles_628\/ecd85c2066f9c060e904128952970b20\"\/)
<\/span><\/div>\nFollowing the success of Zack Snyder\u2019s 300, it seemed like Butler would have trouble making it to the next level in Hollywood. After an attempt to pivot into rom-coms and the critically derided Gamer, Law Abiding Citizen was a wild turn for the Scottish star; instead of the put-upon grizzled hero, he was the villain. Or a different type of hero, depending on how you choose to look at it.<\/p>\n
In Law Abiding Citizen Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a man out for revenge after his wife and daughter are brutally murdered in his own home. The police aren\u2019t able to secure a conviction against one of the assailants, the man who committed the murders, allowing him to turn state\u2019s witness against his partner for a reduced sentence. A decade later, he\u2019s butchered, with a naked Clyde waiting for the cops to take him, but that\u2019s only the start of his revenge.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/AAyhICPIvWyqpmVnuFukCw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/giant_freakin_robot_articles_628\/d709c9e8ac4dfd228e22cfafee35b4ea\"\/)
<\/span><\/div>\nA cat-and-mouse game starts up between Clyde and Nick (Jamie Foxx<\/a>), the prosecutor who refused to pursue his family\u2019s murderer to keep his perfect conviction rate intact. From within prison, Clyde is somehow able to orchestrate everything from kidnappings to bobby-trapped cell phones, as everyone connected to his family\u2019s murder is a target. Law Abiding Citizen may stretch the bounds of believability, but when you get to see Butler and Foxx go face to face in a battle of wits, each believing he has the upper hand, you\u2019ll stop worrying about how improbable the plot is and get swept up in a modern morality tale.<\/p>\nLaw Abiding Citizen isn\u2019t Shakespeare, but it embraces the darkness Clyde has been living in for the last 10 years, with unflinching, sudden violence and a heavy cynicism towards the justice system. Critics lambasted the film for being far-fetched and not making sense, but audiences loved it, as represented by its dueling Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> ratings of 26 percent rotten and 75 percent audience approval. Fans flocked to theaters to see Gerard Butler\u2019s revenge tour, bringing in $126 million worldwide, over twice the film\u2019s production budget of $55 million.<\/p>\nLaw Abiding Citizen Embraces Its Darkness<\/strong><\/h3>\nAt the time, Law Abiding Citizen wasn\u2019t unique with its premise of a good man breaking bad<\/a>, but after over a decade of films like Nobody, Novacaine, and The Amateur, it still stands out by showing the devastating toll of a life devoted to revenge. No one\u2019s perfect in this film, and given what the current crop of action normcore action films has been like, it\u2019s a breath of fresh air in 2025. After watching the film, you\u2019ll wonder along with everyone else, how it could have worked with Jamie Fox and Gerard Butler\u2019s roles reversed, which is what the plan was in pre-production until an 11th-hour suggestion put them in the perfect roles.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/hiKXo8bm8PIg5ffgOI2XXg--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/giant_freakin_robot_articles_628\/3dc397ce7f9f864ff1335395ef5e6fba\"\/)
<\/span><\/div>\nLaw Abiding Citizen isn\u2019t the best movie ever made, and it\u2019s not as smart as it thinks it is, but there\u2019s something about it that lets it rise above its B-movie brethren to become a perennial streaming<\/a> hit on every service it hits. Right now, you can find Law Abiding Citizen on Netflix<\/a>, where it\u2019s climbing the Top Ten chart every single day as more and more people discover why Gerard Butler is one of the most successful movie stars on the planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No one who saw Dracula 2000 would have guessed that 25 years later, the most successful film career wouldn\u2019t belong to Nathan Fillion, Jeri Ryan, or Omar Epps. Instead, it was a relatively unknown actor playing Dracula who became one of the world\u2019s most successful action stars. Gerard Butler started the century playing Dracula and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2079854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[390820,348755,350556,388803,327255,23191],"class_list":["post-2079853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-clyde-shelton","tag-gerard-butler","tag-jamie-foxx","tag-law-abiding-citizen","tag-nathan-fillion","tag-netflix"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/15-Years-Later-A-Dark-Revenge-Thriller-Is-Back-On.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2079853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079855,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079853\/revisions\/2079855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2079854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2079853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2079853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2079853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Following the success of Zack Snyder\u2019s 300, it seemed like Butler would have trouble making it to the next level in Hollywood. After an attempt to pivot into rom-coms and the critically derided Gamer, Law Abiding Citizen was a wild turn for the Scottish star; instead of the put-upon grizzled hero, he was the villain. Or a different type of hero, depending on how you choose to look at it.<\/p>\n
In Law Abiding Citizen Butler plays Clyde Shelton, a man out for revenge after his wife and daughter are brutally murdered in his own home. The police aren\u2019t able to secure a conviction against one of the assailants, the man who committed the murders, allowing him to turn state\u2019s witness against his partner for a reduced sentence. A decade later, he\u2019s butchered, with a naked Clyde waiting for the cops to take him, but that\u2019s only the start of his revenge.<\/p>\n
A cat-and-mouse game starts up between Clyde and Nick (Jamie Foxx<\/a>), the prosecutor who refused to pursue his family\u2019s murderer to keep his perfect conviction rate intact. From within prison, Clyde is somehow able to orchestrate everything from kidnappings to bobby-trapped cell phones, as everyone connected to his family\u2019s murder is a target. Law Abiding Citizen may stretch the bounds of believability, but when you get to see Butler and Foxx go face to face in a battle of wits, each believing he has the upper hand, you\u2019ll stop worrying about how improbable the plot is and get swept up in a modern morality tale.<\/p>\n Law Abiding Citizen isn\u2019t Shakespeare, but it embraces the darkness Clyde has been living in for the last 10 years, with unflinching, sudden violence and a heavy cynicism towards the justice system. Critics lambasted the film for being far-fetched and not making sense, but audiences loved it, as represented by its dueling Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> ratings of 26 percent rotten and 75 percent audience approval. Fans flocked to theaters to see Gerard Butler\u2019s revenge tour, bringing in $126 million worldwide, over twice the film\u2019s production budget of $55 million.<\/p>\n At the time, Law Abiding Citizen wasn\u2019t unique with its premise of a good man breaking bad<\/a>, but after over a decade of films like Nobody, Novacaine, and The Amateur, it still stands out by showing the devastating toll of a life devoted to revenge. No one\u2019s perfect in this film, and given what the current crop of action normcore action films has been like, it\u2019s a breath of fresh air in 2025. After watching the film, you\u2019ll wonder along with everyone else, how it could have worked with Jamie Fox and Gerard Butler\u2019s roles reversed, which is what the plan was in pre-production until an 11th-hour suggestion put them in the perfect roles.<\/p>\n Law Abiding Citizen isn\u2019t the best movie ever made, and it\u2019s not as smart as it thinks it is, but there\u2019s something about it that lets it rise above its B-movie brethren to become a perennial streaming<\/a> hit on every service it hits. Right now, you can find Law Abiding Citizen on Netflix<\/a>, where it\u2019s climbing the Top Ten chart every single day as more and more people discover why Gerard Butler is one of the most successful movie stars on the planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No one who saw Dracula 2000 would have guessed that 25 years later, the most successful film career wouldn\u2019t belong to Nathan Fillion, Jeri Ryan, or Omar Epps. Instead, it was a relatively unknown actor playing Dracula who became one of the world\u2019s most successful action stars. Gerard Butler started the century playing Dracula and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2079854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[390820,348755,350556,388803,327255,23191],"class_list":["post-2079853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-clyde-shelton","tag-gerard-butler","tag-jamie-foxx","tag-law-abiding-citizen","tag-nathan-fillion","tag-netflix"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/15-Years-Later-A-Dark-Revenge-Thriller-Is-Back-On.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2079853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079855,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079853\/revisions\/2079855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2079854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2079853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2079853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2079853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Law Abiding Citizen Embraces Its Darkness<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n