Death Sentence

Variety Justin Chang

Well-made, often intensely gripping genre piece.

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."

Miami Herald Peter Debruge

Death Sentence would be right at home as one half of "Grindhouse"'s B-movie double bill.

Film Threat Michael Ferraro

The action sequences are still pretty imaginative, if not nonsensical.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film has one thing going for it--it's certainly never boring.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

It's a cartoon that thinks it isn't one.

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.

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.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie has nothing to offer except titillation.

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.

Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman

This graphically violent film suffers from cursorily developed characters whose primary function is to advance the creaky plot.

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film is preposterous on so many counts that it's hard to enumerate them.

San Francisco Chronicle Steve Winn

Almost everything about the movie lands with an emphatic, preordained thud.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A very belated and very silly follow-up to "Death Wish."

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

One well-staged sequence in a parking garage is the film's only memorable moment