Death Sentence

I saw DEATH SENTENCE a couple of days ago, and already I can only barely remember it.

DEATH SENTENCE is a variation of the "I love my family. But, if I could be unencumbered, imagine all the kickass stuff I could do!" story. For kids, this story often begins with a separation or orphaning. For adults, it's death or sudden divorce. In this case, it's death: Kevin Bacon is a professional, family guy. His older son is killed in a robbery, and he seeks revenge. When the bad guys come after his family, he's freed to unleash his inner Rambo.

That's fine, and Bacon is as good as usual. But the movie itself has serious flaws. Director James Wan's failures to establish geography leave audiences confused during chase and stalking sequences: who is where, and who is winning? Its bombastic use of color and set design (There's a sequence in a church that lacked only John Woo's flying doves.) distracts us from the film and calls too much attention to the filmmakers. Its use of shaky-cam during fight sequences takes us out of the action and annoys rather than entertains.

Further, as far as revenge fantasies go, DEATH SENTENCE tries to have it both ways. On the one hand, it expects us to believe that Bacon can go from insurance adjustor to killing machine just because he's really mad. On the other, it turns him into a Karloffian monster, as if to wag its finger at us for rooting for him. Pick a side, movie, and stick with it!

Finally, I've just devoted more thought to this film in the last half hour than I did for the two days prior. If you're a Kevin Bacon completist, knock yourself out. Otherwise, you can easily dismiss this film. It's minor at best, bad at worst. You can do better.