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| Cast and Credits |
| Cast: |
Kevin Bacon, Garrett Hedlun, Kelly Preston, John Goodman, Aisha Tyler, Leigh Whannell, Matt O'Leary, Yorgo Constantine, Jordan Garrett |
| Director: |
James Wan |
| Writer: |
Ian Jeffers |
| Rating: |
Rated R for strong bloody brutal violence and pervasive language. |
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Reviewed By: Brendan Cullin
Rating: 5/10
Death Sentence stars Kevin Bacon as a father, a husband and a senior VP of a big firm. He has a happy life, a simple life, until things are turned upside down one day after his son's hockey game. On their way home, the boys stop for gas and a slushy but as Nick (Bacon) fills the gas tank and Brendan buys the drink, a gang of punks show up and what seems like your typical gas station armed robbery turns into Brendan lying dead in a pool of blood - well, maybe not dead at that very moment but he may as well have been. Jump ahead a couple of weeks (or maybe it was only days) and Nick sees that the courts and his shitty lawyers are not going to properly handle the situation and give the punk-assed bitch life in prison, so he takes matters into his own hands. What results is your everyday white collar businessman shaving his head, buying an arsenal of guns, slapping on a leather jacket and going head-to-head with one of the most dangerous gangs on the east coast of the United States of America. It's pretty much the dream of anyone that's ever been done wrong. I mean, who wouldn't dream of putting a bullet in the head of the person who killed their son, daughter, wife or whatever. Hell, I wouldn't mind putting a bullet in the head of the person who cut me off on the way to work today let alone killing someone close to me. For that matter, my boss deserves a good bitch-slapping too. Too bad I don't have the balls to shave my head and I'm too cheap to go buy the leather jacket.
I had high hopes going into Death Sentence. I've always been a fan of the "revenge" kind of movies. At times you can almost live vicariously through the characters and you can develop a certain amount of understanding and sympathy for them. Death Sentence certainly starts out that way. You like Nick, his wife (played by John Travolta's beard named Kelly Preston) and his two kids. They have a great life. And then when things go wrong, it gets extremely emotional. Nick goes after the guy who killed his son - pretty understandable. There's a good chase scene in a parking garage and it's darn entertaining. But then a few things happen that I won't divulge and the movie just seems to go downhill from there. I have to say, I usually get rather annoyed when people are laughing out loud at what is supposed to be a serious movie just because it might ruin the experience for others who are enjoying it. But this time around, an entire theatre was laughing. Hell, I was even chuckling. I think the line that did it for me was something along the lines, "I know you think I liked your brother more than you and at first I did but...". How could someone write something like that and not think people are going to laugh?
And then there was Aisha Tyler as Detective Wallis, a member of one of the worst police forces in the history of movie cops. I mean, you basically know that Kevin Bacon killed one person and all you have to say to him is, "Everyone thinks they’re right in a war, but everyone still dies in the end"??? Shouldn't the line be "You have the right to remain silent"??? That has to be the worst line in a movie that I have heard all year, although the only competition it has is "I liked my other son better than you at first" or whatever that line was. And then to top it all off, they let Bacon pull the old escape through the bathroom window, probably the oldest trick in the history of police escapes. Geez. Or how about the scene with Bacon yelling at the nurse "Where is my son" and she says "I can't tell you" and he says again, "Where is he" and she says "In room 208, two doors down on the left". It may not sound as funny when I'm writing it but trust me, if you do happen to see the movie you'll understand what I mean. It really was quite comical.
Overall, I guess my feeling is that Death Sentence is a good idea, the first half of the movie is decent but what should be a strong ending with a great grand finale ends up being a barrel of laughs with an exorbitant amount of violence and too many moments that leave you wondering, "Did that really happen, did someone really write that?" If the whole movie had been like that I could understand where that ending was coming from but to me, it seemed like the first half of the movie had a real "Falling Down" or "First Blood" feel to it and the second half was a cross between "The Crow", "Hot Fuzz" and "Ace Ventura". Something just didn't feel right. I'm not sure how the filmmakers could have filmed some of those scenes and written some of those lines without seeing that people would laugh their asses off. Maybe they did it on purpose. Who knows. All I know is that the ridiculousness of the second half of Death Sentence was really lost on me. I enjoyed parts of the movie but overall, it's not something I would say you need to rush out to the theatre to see this weekend. The person I saw it with, who just happens to be another highly-acclaimed but pretty fair movie critic, absolutely despised it. My suggestion - if you really are interested in seeing Death Sentence, go to a matinee or wait for the DVD. It isn't anything special unless you feel like seeing a movie where you start by feeling sad and end by laughing hysterically.
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