D

There’s a point not far into “Law Abiding Citizen” when the brooding man planning vengeance against everyone responsible for the failure to secure justice against the villains who murdered his wife and daughter incapacitates one of the killers with what he helpfully identifies as a paralyzing agent isolated from the bile of a puffer fish. If F. Gary Gray’s extravagant “Death Wish” rip-off wasn’t ludicrous before that moment, it certainly becomes so then. But amazingly, it gets ever more ridiculous as it proceeds, ending up as one of the silliest action yarns in years.

Gerard Butler, who must enjoy imprisonment if this picture and “Gamer” are any indication, plays Clyde Shelton, the fellow who, in an ugly prologue, is forced to watch as a loathsome housebreaker (Christian Stolte’s Clarence Darby) rapes and kills his wife and kid. But his desire for justice is denied when ambitious assistant Philadelphia D.A. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) does a deal with Darby that gets him a mild sentence for testifying against his accomplice, who’s sent to death row.

Ten years later, Darby’s free on parole, but not for long, as Shelton orchestrates a scheme that allows him, in a sequence that could have been lifted from “Saw VI,” to dispose of the scumbag in a most brutal fashion. That leads to his arrest and imprisonment; but it turns out that the guy is the western world’s most experienced assassin, and even from a jail cell he continues to wreak vengeance against everybody who messed up Darby’s prosecution—the judge (Annie Corley), Nick’s boss (Bruce McGill), Nick and his family (wife Regina Hall and daughter Emerald-Angel Young) and, as it turns out, the whole population of Philly. And only Nick, helped by gruff homicide detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney), can figure out how he’s managing it and stop the carnage.

“Law Abiding Citizen” is absurd from beginning to end—though, one must admit, more so at the end—but it does deliver a few good jolts along the way (the most notable being one of the simplest, involving nothing more than a telephone). Mostly, however, it’s a depressingly glum and nasty piece of work in which neither of the two characters in the central cat-and-mouse game engages any sympathy. Shelton may be a figure who becomes a sociopath as the result of grief, but he’s still a sociopath, and Butler smirks and grimaces his way through the role, chewing the scenery like any B-movie lead. And the amiable Foxx doesn’t seem to know how to play Rice. The actor’s natural exuberance suffices for the concerned husband-and-father side of the character, but he’s stymied by the D.A.’s darker side—his driving ambition and tendency to cut corners. And as the plot gyrations grow more idiotic, he’s simply overwhelmed by them.

Neither star gets much help from the supporting cast. McGill does his usual bluster and Meaney his patented gruffness, while Stolte plays Darby’s sleaziness without the slightest variation in tone. There’s also a terrible turn from Viola Davis as the hard-nosed mayor; her cameo almost makes one forget her Oscar-nominated one in last year’s “Doubt.”

Drab, grimy cinematography by Jonathan Sella insures that the visuals will be as unattractive as the content, and Brian Tyler’s score is strictly generic.

“Law Abiding Citizen” is the sort of action movie junk that ruined Ashley Judd’s career. There’s room for good pulp trash on screen—remember “Primal Fear,” or even “Se7en”? But lousy pulp, which is what this picture is, deserves a quick trip to the dumpster.