(*Respect to Spinal Tap's Shark Sandwich.) First off, I love me some revenge films.
From the masterful (Park Chan-Wook's vengeance trilogy, Straw Dogs, or Dead Man's Shoes) to the brutal (I Spit on Your Grave or Thriller: En Grym Film), there is no genre that does it for me quite like revenge. So when I first heard about Death Sentence, I figured it'd be worth a viewing: Kevin Bacon, murdered child, director of Saw, I expected it to be at least passable.
Well, I humbly stand corrected. I'm pretty sure if you are someone defending/championing this movie, you are either a) semi-retarded, or b) you need to see a real revenge movie. Everything about this POS is so blatantly one-dimensional that I'm amazed it doesn't slide off the celluloid it was filmed on...
The victim's family doesn't seem THAT upset that their son was murdered, there's no real passion about anything - it's all just very go-with-the-flow. The courtroom scene is pure comedy gold, with the 97-pound-weakling 'killer' smirking and leering at a pretty-much-nonplussed Kevin Bacon. Bacon's character, Nick Hume, doesn't appear too tortured about losing his 'golden boy' (okay, he sobs in the shower once) , and the murder of his son's killer seems almost spur-of-the-moment.
As for the thugs, they're all hilarious - a bunch of didn't-quite-make-the-cut extras from a circa-1997 nü-metal video shoot and should be filed under 'outdated badass' at Central Casting Come on, tribal tattoos and facial piercings!? What are they, a MySpace 'gang' who still listen to bands like Staind or Disturbd, or some other group of no-talents who can't spell, either? And look, there's Johnny Goodman! Just a day or two before seeing this I was thinking to myself, 'Why haven't I seen John Goodman in anything good lately?' I guess now I know why, he's way too busy making turkeys like this. The one-liners aren't clever, not even in a juvenile way, and one line of dialogue, ("Fear is for the enemy. Fear and bullets.") is ripped almost word-for-word from James O'Barr's The Crow (another epic revenge story turned into a lousy movie).
As for the acting? Kevin Bacon is the only one who almost pulls it off, but only almost.
Kelly Preston? Obviously not, she can't even act like Travolta isn't gay.
Goodman? Nope. Sorry.
Garrett 'You-just-bought-your-family-a-death-sentence!' Hedlund? Hey, if I wanted to see a goth kid have a temper tantrum, I'd just e-mail Weston Cage that Little Debbie's had gone out of business , or that there was now a worldwide shortage of blue-black hair dye .
I digress - you know how certain foreign markets tend to eat up some movies better than the film's own home country does? Well, apparently my fellow Canadians love this movie because it has so many references to their national excuse, hockey. The murdered son (the one Nick Hume actually likes) is a hockey player and wants to go to Canada, and we see a cop picking up a broken hockey stick at a crime scene, after Hume has killed one of the 'gang' members. I counted at least 3 or 4 references to hockey in this movie, and I heard the movie was intended to be released here under the name Sudden Death Sentence, Eh? Back to the topic at hand this movie sucked. The bad guys get off way too easily, same as in every other revenge movie. Nobody's cracked it yet the revenge film that goes all the way. We don't even get to see Nick Hume waste Billy Darley in this movie. All that time wasted and there's not even a bloody payoff for the audience. What a waste of 110 minutes. James Wan, whose first Saw film was at least memorable, has dropped the ball horribly. He should instead stick to casting winners like Donnie Wahlberg in his movies and coming up with cheesy gross-outs like the needle pit in Saw II. Truly, the only death sentence in this cinematic abortion is the viewer's own knowing that they are now 110 wasted minutes closer to their own demise.
Enjoy!
From the masterful (Park Chan-Wook's vengeance trilogy, Straw Dogs, or Dead Man's Shoes) to the brutal (I Spit on Your Grave or Thriller: En Grym Film), there is no genre that does it for me quite like revenge. So when I first heard about Death Sentence, I figured it'd be worth a viewing: Kevin Bacon, murdered child, director of Saw, I expected it to be at least passable.
Well, I humbly stand corrected. I'm pretty sure if you are someone defending/championing this movie, you are either a) semi-retarded, or b) you need to see a real revenge movie. Everything about this POS is so blatantly one-dimensional that I'm amazed it doesn't slide off the celluloid it was filmed on...
The victim's family doesn't seem THAT upset that their son was murdered, there's no real passion about anything - it's all just very go-with-the-flow. The courtroom scene is pure comedy gold, with the 97-pound-weakling 'killer' smirking and leering at a pretty-much-nonplussed Kevin Bacon. Bacon's character, Nick Hume, doesn't appear too tortured about losing his 'golden boy' (okay, he sobs in the shower once) , and the murder of his son's killer seems almost spur-of-the-moment.
As for the thugs, they're all hilarious - a bunch of didn't-quite-make-the-cut extras from a circa-1997 nü-metal video shoot and should be filed under 'outdated badass' at Central Casting Come on, tribal tattoos and facial piercings!? What are they, a MySpace 'gang' who still listen to bands like Staind or Disturbd, or some other group of no-talents who can't spell, either? And look, there's Johnny Goodman! Just a day or two before seeing this I was thinking to myself, 'Why haven't I seen John Goodman in anything good lately?' I guess now I know why, he's way too busy making turkeys like this. The one-liners aren't clever, not even in a juvenile way, and one line of dialogue, ("Fear is for the enemy. Fear and bullets.") is ripped almost word-for-word from James O'Barr's The Crow (another epic revenge story turned into a lousy movie).
As for the acting? Kevin Bacon is the only one who almost pulls it off, but only almost.
Kelly Preston? Obviously not, she can't even act like Travolta isn't gay.
Goodman? Nope. Sorry.
Garrett 'You-just-bought-your-family-a-death-sentence!' Hedlund? Hey, if I wanted to see a goth kid have a temper tantrum, I'd just e-mail Weston Cage that Little Debbie's had gone out of business , or that there was now a worldwide shortage of blue-black hair dye .
I digress - you know how certain foreign markets tend to eat up some movies better than the film's own home country does? Well, apparently my fellow Canadians love this movie because it has so many references to their national excuse, hockey. The murdered son (the one Nick Hume actually likes) is a hockey player and wants to go to Canada, and we see a cop picking up a broken hockey stick at a crime scene, after Hume has killed one of the 'gang' members. I counted at least 3 or 4 references to hockey in this movie, and I heard the movie was intended to be released here under the name Sudden Death Sentence, Eh? Back to the topic at hand this movie sucked. The bad guys get off way too easily, same as in every other revenge movie. Nobody's cracked it yet the revenge film that goes all the way. We don't even get to see Nick Hume waste Billy Darley in this movie. All that time wasted and there's not even a bloody payoff for the audience. What a waste of 110 minutes. James Wan, whose first Saw film was at least memorable, has dropped the ball horribly. He should instead stick to casting winners like Donnie Wahlberg in his movies and coming up with cheesy gross-outs like the needle pit in Saw II. Truly, the only death sentence in this cinematic abortion is the viewer's own knowing that they are now 110 wasted minutes closer to their own demise.
Enjoy!