Sadistic and silly, "Law Abiding Citizen" takes the revenge movie to ridiculous extremes.

This is no Charles Bronson-type film that depicts a vigilante ridding the world of scum, although it appears to be similar to that in the beginning. We see a happy family (always a bad sign at the beginning of any dramatic film) facing the unexpected intrusion of two brutal thieves who leave a man named Clyde (Gerard Butler) wounded and his wife and daughter dead.

The story unfolds in Philadelphia, where Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is a prosecutor who makes deals with felons in order to maintain his high conviction rate. Nick is a family man with a lovely wife and an adorable daughter. Of course, he's one of those successful fathers who needs to learn a lesson about what really is important.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Clyde is dismayed, to say the least, when Nick tells him he has cut a deal with one of the intruders so he may get a death sentence for the other man. This doesn't sit well with Nick, who knows that even though both suspects were in his home, the man getting the deal is the real killer.

When the man who is about to be executed shouts his innocence, no one listens. But those in the audience certainly pay attention when the punishment goes terribly wrong. Someone obviously has tampered with the process.

Soon afterward, the surviving and now-free killer is led on a wild-goose chase by a mysterious phone caller who ultimately leads him to a ghastly, grisly death.

Nick knows it's Clyde behind the slayings, but Clyde begins to toy with him even as he sits in prison. "You're the one who makes deals with murderers, yeah?" Clyde sneers. "Well, I've come to make mine. Release me."

Soon, everyone involved in the case is in danger. "I'm just gettin' warmed up," Clyde smugly tells Nick, who desperately turns to a spy who once worked with Clyde. "If he wants you dead, you're dead," the man tells the desperate Nick. But Clyde continues to mastermind various ways to slay people even while he's in solitary confinement.

This is, in a word, implausible. Yes, it kept me guessing for a bit, but the plot holes continued to gape even though I remained interested.

The acting is fine, but Butler, who apparently was asked to try to hide his Scottish accent, ends up with some oddly articulated lines.

The entire thing is oddly articulated, in fact, a passionless excuse for a revenge movie that's more likely to leave you shrugging your shoulders than cheering for the avenger.