Instead of Seeing ‘Death Sentence,’ I Would Have Welcomed a Death Sentence

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CHICAGO – When an everyday man goes seeking family justice, action-thriller “Death Sentence” teaches us this valuable lesson: Don’t hire Kevin Bacon for a role you wrote for Charles Bronson.

Kevin Bacon in “Death Sentence”.
Photo courtesy of Picturehouse
With “Death Sentence,” James Wan tries to reinvigorate the vengeance film genre à la the 1974 film “Death Wish” starring Bronson. Wan’s interpretation has everything you could want in a “vengeance” movie but none of the characteristics you would find in a “good” movie.

Wan – the mastermind behind the “Saw” franchise – attempts to imbue gore in a weak, two-dimensional story. The whole picture leaves you feeling like you’re watching a bad Steven Seagal movie on the USA Network.

Bacon plays a white-collar vice president with a loving wife (Kelly Preston) and two great kids. You know his life is peachy from the opening montage of home movies showing one son winning trophies and loads of happy family memories.

Garrett Hedlund in “Death Sentence”.
Photo courtesy of Picturehouse
Minutes into the film (publisher’s note: this is known from the trailer), Bacon’s son is murdered before his very eyes at a gas station. About eight gang members burst in to rob the store with one clerk present.

One of the members is forced to kill Bacon’s son to become “made” in the gang. This particular thug slices the innocent 16-year-old’s throat with a machete that I assume he was carrying from a hard day of work in the sugar-cane field.

The murderer gets left behind by his cohorts and arrested. Even with an eye-witness, the district attorney isn’t sure he can convict the man since the murder weapon was magically missing, no blood is on him and there is no surveillance tape.

John Goodman (left) and Garrett Hedlund in “Death Sentence”.
Photo courtesy of Picturehouse
Bacon decides not to testify against the kid and seek his own justice by any means necessary. The means he chooses are contrived and predictable. To not spoil it for you should you decide to see this hack job any way, this desciption is only 15 minutes in.

The rest of the film is back-and-forth violence between the gang and Bacon’s family.

While “Death Wish” author Brian Garfield conceived the story for “Death Sentence,” it feels like the actual screenplay was written and doctored up by at least four different writers. I assume the first two drafts were done by ninth-grade boys.

Kelly Preston in “Death Sentence”.
Photo courtesy of Picturehouse
Though I don’t pretend to know much about gang lifestyle, I then reconcile that fact by not writing screenplays about it.

While Bacon and Preston both seemed to make an honest go at it, the rest of the acting and dialogue made me embarrassed for the actors. John Goodman plays the leader of the gang’s father and clearly the most unneeded role in the film.

Goodman seems to put more acting energy into his Dunkin’ Donuts commercial work, which is arguably a subject closer to his heart.

In the end, more attention was spewed into designing the criminals’ neck tattoos than on a plot and characters. Watching “Death Sentence” felt more like a life sentence, and in prison, they probably show better movies.

By DUSTIN LEVELL Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com dustin@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2008 Dustin Levell, HollywoodChicago.com

Publisher’s note: This film’s Oscarman rating of 1.0 is currently the lowest rating on HollywoodChicago.com.

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