Death Sentence

Sun, Aug 31, 2008

Last night, I was flipping through the numerous movie channels on Direct TV when I happened across Death Sentence. I vaguely remembered this film being advertised on television before its 2007 release though I don’t remember it having much staying power at the box office. Big name stars including Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, Garrett Hedlund, and Aisha Taylor could not provide enough momentum to rescue this film from the discount bin.

Upon looking into it further, it remained in wide release in the US for eight weeks and grossed just under 7.6 million dollars with over 5.3 million dollars of that coming during the opening weekend. With numbers like those it was bound for Netflix and cable very quickly. In stark contrast, The Brave One starring Jodie Foster, which was released two weeks later and had a very similar storyline, enjoyed a huge box office take of just over 323 million dollars in the US alone with most of that coming after dismal opening weekend numbers!

Death Sentence follows a suburban dad, played by Kevin Bacon, who decides to take matters into his own hands when his golden boy, high school son is killed at random during a gang initiation and he learns that the most justice he can hope for is a three to five years prison sentence for the killer. Though he has obviously thought about his vigilante style justice, Bacon’s character actually has a somewhat difficult time carrying out his first killing. I say first because the situation rapidly deteriorates as the remaining gang members, led by Garrett Hedlund’s character, plot and execute their own brand of revenge. Aisha Taylor’s character, Detective Wallis, tries to intervene to protect Bacon’s family which had been directly threatened as retalliation by the gang. Of course the protection of the police is ineffective which results in the shooting of Bacon and his wife, played by Kelly Preston, and his younger son. We learn along with the miraculously surviving Bacon that his son, though in critical condition, has also survived the home invasion-type gang retalliation. Taylor’s character keeps insisting that this “war” stop; of course this is not possible for Bacon’s character. In Charles Bronson, Death Wish fashion, bacon’s character purchases four guns and pursues the gang to their base of operations. You can imagine the quite graphic shootout that leaves only Bacon and Hedlund’s characters alive but very wounded. As a bit of parting social commentary, Hedlund’s character points out the new reality that Bacon has become a mirror image of the gang members he has come to despise.

While I do not think it would go on my Netflix list, I would watch it if it was on television. The action sequences are quite good. This movie lost me for a couple of reasons. First the acting by the younger son, played by Jordan Garrett, which was featured quite prominently seemed forced and uninspired. Second, the movie is very formulaic and overdone with no apparently redeeming qualities for Bacon’s character. Watch it for the action.

Popularity: 24% [?]

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