Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with the perfect life until one gruesome night when he witnesses a gang initiation ritual that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when it comes to protecting his family.
James Wan sure had a lot of fun shooting "Death Sentence" - you can tell. He took a traditional revenge story, spiced it up with some old country western themes while setting it against a bleak urban gangland for a backdrop. It's the sort of movie that could have been overdone easily but Wan kept his "Saw"-brand suspense brewing quietly in a story that delivers as much genius as glitches.
Kevin Bacon as a suit is a surefire hit. His bony countenance when playing men of position has always let us know that the discomfort would boil over into something interesting! As "Gladiator" Nick Hume, the wronged father of a dead son, husband of a dead wife, he is challenged to deliver the sort of uneasy viewing we last saw in "The Woodsman". In a plot reminiscent of last year's "The Brave One", Bacon is the darker version of Jodie Foster, who goes out hunting an enemy that might just be less sinister than the person they have become.
What does Kevin Bacon in "Death Sentence" add to the post-modern vigilante genre like Michael Douglas in "Falling Down" or Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill"? Not much, really. The movie starts out well enough, with proper character development a la "Saw" and whatnot, then gradual disenchantment of the protagonist. However, somewhere near the last third of the film, the story took a sharp turn and transformed a decent slow-burning action drama into a bullet banquet Tarantino himself might have enjoyed. Could this be an injustice to the movie, as much as Nick Hume was let down by the system that failed him?
Just like the "Saw" movies, Wan has never offered real resolutions to his stories. He tells them as is, end of, with no regard for the more demanding portion of the audience who were earlier piqued by moral struggles of its characters. For gun-and-gore viewers, the action would arrive too late as well. Perhaps, in the words of the good director himself, this movie's best achievement is a continuous three-minute relay cam take at a parking lot - a scene that is almost worthy of being mentioned in the same league as Hitchcock's "Rope" or that breath-taking long take in "Children Of Men".
I think the movie is still a decent watch - but it is the sort of "swearing" movie that would get butchered like "The Departed" and suffer in continuity and texture. Still, it is a worthy compensation for any of the "Grind house" movies that didn't reach our shores. Wan would do well to start using sex appeal in his films - perhaps some suggestive Kelly Preston shots would have lifted this movie out of mediocrity convincingly. Then again, he wasn't going for that, was he?
