Death Sentence
By Jason Revill
Sometimes morbid curiosity gets the better of me and I can’t help but see a movie because I’ve heard how bad it is. It’s like when someone says “Try this, it tastes terrible.” Besides, how am I not going to see a movie by James Wan, the guy crapped out Saw, possibly the worst movie I have ever seen in the theater. I judge every bad movie I see by whether or not I would rather it or sit through Saw again. So far nothing has beaten it and that’s including Transformers. So far…
Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) is just your average white collar family man. Everything seems to be going great for him until while out his son is brutally murdered in a gang initiation. When the police and the justice system seem completely unable and unwilling to help justice get served, Nick takes matters in his own hands. He goes out searching for the man who killed his son, but in doing so Nick incurs the wrath of Billy (Garret Hedlund) the gang leader, leading to an endless cycle of revenge.
The acting, oh the acting. Well, I will say this for Kevin Bacon, it’s probably his best performance since his Blockbuster Entertainment Award winning performance in Hollow Man. John Goodman is just disgusting as Jabba the Hutt as a gun dealing father of a murderous gang member. What kind of accent is he doing? Is he Jewish or from Boston? The gang is pretty much ridiculous, just imagine every want-a-be bad ass in every movie you’ve ever seen and they’re represented here, everyone from the little brother who’s being initiated, to Scared-y McPees-His-Pants to the token black guy, who’s dialogue sounds like it was written by a white guy. By the way if Scientology can’t keep Kelly Preston from signing on to movies like Battlefield Earth, Cat in the Hat, and this, then maybe she should seriously consider becoming a Buddhist.
Here’s a list of things that do not make you tough: facial hair, shaved heads, leather jackets, red lights in your hideout, saying the word “fuck” a lot and smoking. I honestly don’t know that I would be intimidated by a single person in this film. It’s like what someone would think gang members are like if their only experience with the inner-city was watching the Fast and the Furious movies. If I saw Billy and his boys walking up I wouldn’t get scared I would say “Hey here’s a bunch of fashionably dressed jackasses with unfortunate tribal tattoos.” I may assume they were in a revamping of West Side Story.
The ending of Death Sentence , with its oh-so-ironic message is ridiculous, but everything in the hour and a half leading up to it should have prepared you for that possibility. We’re talking about a movie where the main character goes from being shot and in the hospital to a gun toting sociopath in a matter of minutes. Seriously, mild mannered pussy to Dirty Harry in a switch of camera angles. He then goes and buys a bunch of guns from Billy’s dad, who apparently gives him his blessing to kill his son, which is okay because Billy kills his dad later. You know it’s a good thing that Billy’s dad gave Nick those user manuals with the guns he purchased because he went from not being able to load one to not being able to miss a target within one scene.
Death Sentence is just a waste of human effort and will go on my list of reasons of how James Wan is ruining filmmaking. Granted this is probably the highlight of his career thus far, but I have to admit with this film and Dead Silence from earlier in the year, which is just stupid, I’m starting to feel like I’m having a joke played on me. It’s hard for me to believe that someone with a human brain could look at these movies and think “Wow, that’s damn fine work.” I am having to reconsider whether or not Wan and Uwe Boll for that matter aren’t doing it on purpose. There’s no way you could make such consistently bad films without it being deliberate.
The Grade
- Story: D
- Acting: C-
- Visuals: C-
- Originality: C-
- Enjoyability: D
- Overall: D+
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