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Death Sentence
EMAILPRINTTwentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 28 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Brian Garfield (novel)
Ian Jeffers
Directed by: James Wan
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 31, 2007
DVD: January 8, 2008
Running Time: 110 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong bloody brutal violence and pervasive language
Starring Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Aisha Tyler, and Matt O'Leary
Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family. (20th Century Fox)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Dead Silence Saw
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Wan's movie is very efficient. Bacon, skilled pro that he is, provides the character the movie needs, just as he has in such radically different films as "Where the Truth Lies," "The Woodsman" and "Mystic River."
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Peter Debruge
Death Sentence would be right at home as one half of "Grindhouse"'s B-movie double bill.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Michael Ferraro
The action sequences are still pretty imaginative, if not nonsensical.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The film has one thing going for it--it's certainly never boring.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Bears more than a slight connection to the landmark of the genre, 1974's "Death Wish," starring Charles Bronson. It is based on novelist Brian Garfield's sequel to his original book, though any resemblance is tenuous at best.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart
While there is the requisite amount of shorn limbs and splashing blood one might expect from the director of "Saw," Wan should be saluted for putting the coup de grâce off-screen.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
Sadly, Bacon is only intermittently convincing as a man hell-bent on revenge or a father tortured by what he has unleashed on his family.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Death Sentence's message - that vengeance is ultimately futile, spinning out a vicious circle of rage and hate - may be commendable, but there's nothing noteworthy about the way Wan, Bacon and their troops go about delivering it.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Death Sentence, directed by "Saw" co-creator James Wan, swings the pendulum too far. One day Nick is a mild-mannered nerd who spends his days making (and loving) risk assessments for his company; the next, he's Travis Bickle from 1976's "Taxi Driver."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Meredith Goldstein
The cynics will slap their foreheads, the squeamish will cover their eyes, but the revenge movie fanatics should be nice and satisfied after the whole ordeal.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
Aside from a stunning three-minute tracking shot as the gang pursues Nick through a parking garage, and Mr. Bacon’s hauntingly pale, dark-eyed visage, Mr. Wan’s film is a tedious, pandering time-waster.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
Wan wants to have something both ways, and in the end, he gets almost nothing. As Clint Eastwood said in yet another genre picture: A man’s gotta know his limitations.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Jim Ridley
The only things anyone’s likely to remember, besides Bacon’s crazy-eyes act, are John Goodman’s soon-to-be-legendary turn as a bilious bug-eyed gun dealer and a hellacious back-alley/parking-garage chase shot from a careening fender-level camera. Like much of the movie, it’s as hammily dynamic as it is impossible to swallow.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman
This graphically violent film suffers from cursorily developed characters whose primary function is to advance the creaky plot.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The morality of revenge is barely at issue in a movie that pushes the plausibility of revenge right over a cliff.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The film is preposterous on so many counts that it's hard to enumerate them.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Steve Winn
Almost everything about the movie lands with an emphatic, preordained thud.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A very belated and very silly follow-up to "Death Wish."
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Bacon's performance in "Saw" creator James Wan's laughably extreme revenge thriller Death Sentence is six degrees of ham.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
This film is so superficial and shifts so jarringly in tone that nothing feels authentic -- not Bacon's hard-working husband and father, nor his maniacal vengeance seeker.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
One well-staged sequence in a parking garage is the film's only memorable moment
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chase C. gave it a10:
This is one of my favorite movies, I guess I just have bad taste, because almost all of my favorite movies are rated at the worst with metacritic. This movie is one of the most badass movies i have ever seen, Another nice thing about this movie is there isn't the bad techno music while they are having a fire fight. This movie is a must watch.
Vince F gave it a6:
This movie is strange. It tries to act like it has a point but it's just a bloodbath dressed up with a shmaltzy soundtrack. This movie has some genuine surprises and some fairly decent acting (although John Goodman's part is unfortunately stupid). If you suspend your disbelief and prepare to be bored for about 15 minutes out of the movie, it's a decent popcorn flick. This film just tries a little too hard and ends up leaving you confused.
Kevin A gave it a3:
I'm glad I didn't have to pay to see this. The family scenes were so predictable that I fast forwarded through most of them. I do have to say that the action scenes were fun to watch. They were actually quite intense even though they made me laugh. I kept wondering why the cops never really interrogated Bacon or arrested him. They had probable cause. I guess it's because he was killing scumbags that the cops couldn't seem to catch, or even seem to want to catch, even after they killed some cops. So, ultimately I would have given it a 1 if it weren't for some of the action scenes.
John S. gave it a3:
Every character in the movie was incompetent. You know how sometimes movies put characters in situations designed to ask the audience "what would you do in that situation?" Well every time Bacon did something my only answer was "not that." There just wasn't enough killing to make up for the lackluster script.
Roberto F. gave it a10:
Extraordinary! Why should films be realistic? They're needed to escape away from life and its terrors.
Steve A gave it a2:
This movie was awful. The police and detectives in this movie were embarrassingly incompetent. There are scenes of people killing and maiming each other in broad daylight for hours with a lot of people around, and the cops still don't know anything. The Bacon character was just as crappy. Did he not care about his family's safety at all? And then there are the scenes where the bad guys spend all day threatening the Bacon character and spilling blood in the streets, and then they come to Bacon's home THAT SAME NIGHT, well after the fact that every cop in town has been alerted to the situation. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The only thing I liked about this movie was some of the acting, especially John Goodman's.
Dan W. gave it a10:
First of all in response to Kevin, I don't know how you define "acting like a normal human being", but John Goodman's character was definitely the LEAST like it. Think about it: not only did he allow the man trying to kill his son leave, but he sold him the guns to do it!! And as for the cop showing no sympathy, Bacon's character is wanted for murder, not to mention the fact that cops probably see tearjerker stories like that more often than not. This was an incredible film that went way beyond the revenge-killing cliche by showing much deeper insight into the emotional rollercoaster that Bacon's character had to go through. As for Roy P., how can you say he uses the same look in every scene? Up until Bacon escapes from hospital, he flexes his acting range from shock to fear to determination to anguish to anger, finally ending up with the look of someone who has lost the fear of death and knows he has one purpose left. Put yourself in the character's position. How in God's name would you know what you would do in those situations, what you would be capable of. I guess this is just one of those movies like History of Violence or Eastern Promises where you either love it or you hate it.
