recommended

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

How can a nice, kind, "Father of the Year" type morph into parts Navy Seal, Green Beret, Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood --- with one hell of a score to settle? You tell me. I don't know. The bad reviews for "Death Sentence" are close to on point. The good reviews for "Death Sentence" are close to on point. Which side of the fence one is on depends on the level of one's "suspension of belief" meter.I liked it. Makes me want to put "Death Wish 3" in the DVD.

This film is from director James Wan, who directed Saw. It stars Kevin Bacon as a happily married father of two boys whose successful and stable life is devastated by his eldest son being brutally murdered by a gang. Bacon's character is no hard man, he is an average guy but he is pushed over the edge when he learns all he can hope for is that the killer will spend a very short couple of years in jail. He decides to drop his identification of the young guy who committed the murder allowing him to go free then follows him and kills him. Unfortunately for him the rest of the gang then seeks him out and matters escalate further.This is not a copy of Death Wish, the 1970s revenge thriller starring Charles Bronson, but is very similar in premise. There are also numerous revenge thrillers with similar ideas so this is not very original. It also is rather clichéd in many scenes of action and dialogue and in the characterisations - the scumbag psycho gang members, the family man pushed over the edge, the heartless lawyers etc. It has some quite exciting action and Bacon acts the part in his usual very capable, impressive style. The revenge aspect is something which appeals to many viewers as seeing a scumbag bad guy get their evil revisited on them is hugely satisfying. So this could have still been a really solid, entertaining thriller but I found it really badly thought through.Problems with plausibility are the main issue. We all know gangland initiations happen and innocent victims get killed and we also know criminals often get off lightly or go free due to lack of evidence. However, the victim's father causing the murderer to be caught at the scene, identifying him in a line up as the one who killed his son, his obvious ability to identify the highly distinctive cars the gang drives, the fact the gang are well known to the police etc all makes it rather unbelievable that the prosecutors feel unable to secure a conviction. There is also the assertion the gas station happened to be the only one around with no cctv and they just happened to run out of fuel immediately after a run-in with scumbags in two souped up cars and stops in a dangerous part of town. Given its position in such a bad part of town, would the gas station really not have cctv? The gas station worker got killed, would he really risk his life working there without even taking security steps of cctv? Would Bacon's character, a man who says he works in risk assessment, take his son through the worst part of town on low fuel and then stop at the gas station just after having threatening behaviour from the gang on the road? And then he allows his precious son to go in the shop. All very stupid to the point of being hard to believe. In movies a car gives one low fuel warning and people have to instantly stop to refuel. In real life you get warnings before fuel gets too low and you can drive for miles before really needing to stop. In this situation the father would surely have driven further out of the risky part of town and away from the threatening motorists he encountered.After that we have to believe that the police take no action and do not investigate the gang (who are well known to them) when the gang run through the streets and through a multi-storey car park firing guns, chasing Bacon and ending up with another gang member dead. They just question Bacon about whether he acted as a vigilante! Would there be no cctv in the streets or car park (the gang were not even disguised!) and not one terrified bystander being shot at was wanting to identify who was firing guns in their direction?! The dead gang member in the wrecked car could not be linked to the gang to confirm - along with all the other evidence - that it was the gang firing guns at people etc?Then we have to believe that when Bacon finally asks the police for help with the gang threatening his family, they do not arrest or even question the gang and just post one cop outside the property. Then even after the murder of Bacon's wife, attempted murder of him and his other son and the murder of the police officer guarding the property (in real life a cop's murder, even in violent America, is considered by police to be extremely serious) they STILL do not arrest or question the gang!!! They just give Bacon a really hard time as he lies in his hospital bed suffering extreme trauma and bereavement!!! Laughable! What made it even worse were little moments of horrendous stupidity like the nurse laughing and making a stupid, inappropriate joke to Bacon the second he opens his eyes in hospital after having had his entire family shot!!! Then the bank worker laughs and jokes he is taking the kids college funds when he takes cash out of the bank?! Nobody in this film acts how people do in real life! I found the director's earlier film Saw similarly poorly put together but with the additional negatives of grisly, torture-porn themes and worse acting. Others loved it and will love this film too. That is up to them but I think lack of logic is clearly a fact in this film.Many viewers only see some action, some excitement and some revenge and think this is a good film but I see all the flaws and think I am being extremely generous to give it 3/10. I only give that for Bacon's performance, John Goodman's cameo (as a gun dealer) and some decent, entertaining action.

I don't know why I keep coming back to this film but I love it. I watch it at least once a year. Kevin Bacon is brilliant i wish he wasn't known for EE adverts in the UK. The way he transforms in such a relatable way in this film never fails to move me. I cant believe how wrong Metacritic gets this film . If your hesitating in watching just do it.

"Death Sentence" features a really good piece of dialogue, which I'd seen written on a website (I'm at a loss for citation) before ever having heard of this movie. Anyhoo, it's John Goodman, selling black market guns to royally-wronged Kevin Bacon:"You've got the bastard of bastards. A .357, for guaranteed head removal. That's- that's a sweetie. You got your standard-size, super-size. That's a f-ckin' hungry man right there. And you got the king of mayhem. Half cannon, sword of justice. Take this f-cker to the Holy Land, start your own crusade. Any one of these is bound to make you feel better about what's bothering you."Seriously, imagine John Goodman saying those words. Hell, I'd buy guns from that guy!Sadly the movie itself is just a "Death Wish" clone with an identity crisis. Is Kevin Bacon a modern Charles Bronson, or Travis Bickle? The movie wants him to be both, and that confusion is why the revenge angle never bears fruit. Just when you think he's attained a clear head after all he's suffered , he flips the switch into utter badass (complete with unexplained fighting moves, honed marksmanship and a steely resolve. Okay, that's still not a deal-breaker. And with a movie like this, you need the police to be useless, so the hero/wronged has an excuse to go full-on vigilante. Totally fine. But where's the police when the big bad gang kills their own? Hollywood always teaches us that a cop-killer is as cardinal-sin as it gets. Anyway, Bacon goes mental and the bad guys start paying dearly, but there's never much fun to be had here. Aside from one stand-out foot chase, it's mostly bad camera-work and manic editing.Blech.7/10