Sweet Revenge: 'Law Abiding Citizen' & the Top Five Revenge Films

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FOR A COUNTRY that is so well-known for our justice system, we're a society pretty obsessed with revering vigilantes. From comic book legends like Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman to actors like Clint Eastwood, we put people who strike their own path toward reversing the world's wrongs up on a pedestal, respecting their ability to buck the status quo.

It's a social phenomenon that occurs not just all over the world — such as in Germany, where an elderly gang in June kidnapped and chained up a financial advisor who had lost about $4 million of their savings — and on the big screen, when film "Law Abiding Citizen" opens in theaters Friday. Starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, the film centers on Clyde Shelton (Butler), a man whose wife and daughter are killed in a home invasion; he decides to take revenge against both the men who did it and Nick Rice (Foxx), the corrupt District Attorney who helped them got off for the crime.

If you haven't seen the commercials, they include a lot of shots of a supposedly intense showdown between Butler and Foxx, the kind of overdone acting that makes us wish Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington had been cast in the film instead. Why those two, you may ask? Because Crowe and Washington have already proven their acting chops in some of our favorite vigilante justice-oriented films, which we've taken upon ourselves to list below for your reading enjoyment. These are the five flicks we think get that kind of revenge right — and which kept us cheering for the anti-hero the whole way through.

"MAN ON FIRE"

Two-time Academy Award winner Washington rarely picks a film that won't showcase his flexible, from-sensitive-to-murderous acting versatility, and "Man on Fire" is no exception.

The 2004 film based on the book by A.J. Quinnell centers on Washington as ex-CIA operative Creasy, a burnt-out alcoholic who is trying to put his days of violence and death behind him and who takes a job with a rich Mexican family as a way to pay the bills. In charge of taking care of and protecting Pita (Dakota Fanning) from kidnap-happy Mexican gangs, Creasy grows close to the young girl, accompanying her to swim practice and filling the void her busy parents have left behind.

But when she gets kidnapped in a set-up that leaves Creasy seriously wounded and blamed for the death of two police officers, he fully embraces his counterinsurgent role once again, killing everyone in his path to finding out what happened to Pita. High-ranking government officials? Sure. Gang leaders? Why not! Pita's own family? Well, maybe, but we won't ruin the film for you — it's one of Washington's best roles since "Training Day," even if it doesn't have any quotes as good as "I am the police!"

"MAD MAX"

Decades before Mel Gibson was running through the streets with a beaver puppet on one arm (yeah, we don't get it, either) and strutting around town with Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva on the other, he was changing post-apocalyptic films as Hollywood knew them with "Mad Max," which focused on Gibson as Max, a leather-clad police officer in a future where oil is scarce and motorcycle gangs roam around the countryside trying to find more.

Originally one of Australia's top police officers, Max becomes disillusioned with the force and society when witnesses fail to show up at a hearing for a caught gang member, and when his partner gets horrendously burned after payback from the gang. He decides to leave his days as an officer behind, but when his wife and son are killed by the same gang, he falls back on his training (and that leather jumpsuit) to hunt down its members one by one and kill them in the most merciless ways possible. Running them off a bridge, forcing them into the path of a huge semi-trailer truck and chaining them to a car that's about to explode are just some of the ways Max gets his revenge — and although the rest of the series isn't as vigilante-tastic as the original, Gibson definitely gets a good thing going with this first film.

"KILL BILL"

There are few revenge films that center on women ("Unforgiven" with Eastwood began with the injustice done to a woman, but they weren't main players in the film, and while "The Brave One" was a good turn for Jodie Foster, the film dragged in places), but Quentin Tarantino did the female gender a great service with "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Kill Bill Vol. 2." Starring Uma Thurman as the done-wrong Bride, the films took a look at vigilante justice from a woman's point of view — and added lots of blood and gore to make it appeal to men, too.

After waking up from a coma to find her unborn baby ripped from her womb, former assassin Beatrix Kiddo (Thurman) totes around her must-kill list — which is comprised of her former lover, Bill (the late David Carradine), and his other four assassins, the Deadly Vipers — and makes good on massacring all of them. From throwing a knife in Vernita Green's (Vivica A. Fox) chest to slicing off the top of O-Ren Ishii's (Lucy Liu) head to plucking out Elle Driver's (Daryl Hannah) eye, Kiddo unleashes all the fury of a woman scorned — and has no problem showing the Vipers what's what. We're pretty sure the term "badass bitch" definitely applies here.

"THE CROW"

Although the 1994 film "The Crow" has been endlessly imitated (with sequels starring everyone from Edward Furlong to David Boreanaz), nothing comes close to the original, which was based on J. O'Barr's comic book and starred the late Brandon Lee, who was killed during its filming.

In a Detroit overwhelmed by corruption and bleak hopelessness, rock star Eric Draven (Lee) and his girlfriend, Shelly, are murdered by hired thugs; after one year, a crow drags Draven back to the world of the living to avenge their deaths. A full face of make-up later (similar to what the demented Cesare wore in silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and somewhat imitated by Heath Ledger's Joker in "The Dark Knight") and with the crow tagging along, Draven starts tracking down everybody who attacked him and Shelly. Permeated by a heartbreaking sense of loss and with witty dialogue along the way (there's a glorious moment of poetic irony when Draven quotes "The Raven" before killing one of the thugs), the film is a haunting, noir-esque masterpiece, a testament to Lee's cut-short life and O. Barr's macabre, justified vision of revenge.

"GLADIATOR"

The greatness of this film can be captured in a few simple lines from Crowe: "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." You shouldn't need any more proof than that.

Written by Express contributor Roxana Hadadi