Death Sentence, starring Kevin Bacon, is by far one of the worst movies of the summer.
The plot, story, acting and directing are all just plain bad. Scenes that are supposed to be emotional and evoke sympathy for the characters are long, drawn out and boring.
At the outset it sounds like any revenge story and most tend to follow the same kind of formula.
This usually consists of the first quarter of the movie telling how the main character is happy, has the perfect life and then how he loses it all in a bloody massacre. The second quarter follows the main character’s struggle to come to terms with his loss and his decision that the best course of action is gory vengeance. This sets up for an action packed violent, brutal and bloody second half.
As said, this is usual formula for retribution films. Kill Bill, the Punisher, Mad Max etc have all followed this pattern and have been fairly successful.
Death Sentence does follow the pattern, but the timing and everything is all skewed. It is overdrawn, overly long and dull. The main protagonist Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) seeks out vengeance following the death of his son and wife. Now this sounds perfectly normal for a revenge movie, however the actual revenge and half decent action does not take place until the end of the movie. The rest of the film is a painfully slow build up to the disappointing ending.
Saw director James Wan has done a very poor job here. He has turned what had the potential to be a half decent summer movie into a lingering mess of bad melodrama and deficient action sequences.
Not even the funny John Goodman can save this movie from itself. It is simply a mess.
If you want to waste two hours of your life, go and watch Death Sentence. It’ll leave you morbidly depressed and wishing that it was most indeed your own death sentence.
Aptly named for critics and their puns, Death Sentence is out now in cinemas nationwide.
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