Continuity mistake: When Darby is running from the police and heading for the police car you can see the exhaust emitting from the police cruiser tail pipe. When he gets in the car he says start the car and you can see Clyde turn the ignition/keys and the engine starts of an already idling vehicle. (00:20:35)
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Leslie Bibb, Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney
Mike (Jamie Foxx) discovers that Clyde (Gerard Butler) had tunnels leading out of every cell in the prison, which is how he was able to cause all the chaos he caused through the film. Clyde plans to blow up the mayor with a bomb in city hall. After planting the bomb, Clyde returns to his cell where Mike is waiting with a gun. He tries to convince Clyde not to activate the bomb, but Clyde does so anyway. Mike locks him in the cell and leaves as Clyde discovers that Mike moved the bomb underneath his bed. Clyde looks at his daughter's bracelet as he goes up in flames. Mike gets away, but must live with the decision of killing Clyde.
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More mistakes in Law Abiding Citizen
Clyde Shelton: I'm gonna pull the whole thing down. I'm gonna bring the whole fuckin' diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna be biblical.
Trivia: The same cemetery seen here was also used in Transformers.
Question: I never really understood what the motive was when Clyde murdered his cellmate. Why did he do it? What did this act have to do with the plot of this movie?
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Answer: To make sure he was placed in solitary confinement. The warehouse that he owned and operated out of that was next to the prison also had a tunnel connected to every cell in the solitary wing. Clyde needed to be in one of the solitary cells so he could leave the prison whenever he needed to unnoticed, which also served to make it look like he had an accomplice on the outside.
Phaneron ★
When Nick is talking to a spook later in the movie, he is quoted as telling Nick: "That cell-mate that he killed, you think that was random? No. That's a pawn being moved off the board. Anyone who had anything to do with that case, he's gonna be coming after you." Just as all deaths played roles in Clydes game, as the audience we are led to believe this inmate played a role, but were never given any resolution as to what significance it was. Not a big deal in grand scheme of things, but unexplained.
I don't know if you just didn't read the answer thoroughly or if you didn't pay close attention to the movie, but Clyde killing his cellmate was far from being unexplained. He can't leave the prison if he's in a regular cell with the general population, so he kills the cellmate in order to get placed in the solitary wing, because every solitary cell is connected to the tunnel in his warehouse that is next to the prison, which allows him to leave whenever he needs to.
Phaneron ★