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Death Sentence (2007) DVD Review
Death Sentence (2007) DVD Credits:
Death Sentence (2007) Directed by:
James Wan
Death Sentence (2007) Written by:
Ian Jeffers
Death Sentence (2007) Cast:
Kevin Bacon, Aisha Tyler, Kelly Preston, Stuart Lafferty, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Matthew O'Leary, Leigh Whannell
Death Sentence (2007) Released by:
Hyde Park Entertainment
Region:
1
Death Sentence (2007) DVD Release Date:
8th January 2008
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Death Sentence (2007) Synopsis:

The script follows a father out for revenge after his family is attacked in a senseless and heinous gang-initiation crime. The father enacts a death sentence on each perpetrator involved with the crime.

Death Sentence (2007) DVD Review:

With methods of eliminating crime, you have to ask yourself, do the ends justify the means. With a movie like James Wan’s Death Sentence, you have to ask yourself, do the means justify the ends. The film begins with a tragedy that befalls a family, and how the resulting actions of the father, played by Kevin Bacon, spread further chaos and a tussle with a violent street gang. Certain parts of this film impressed me on a technical level, the cinematography in particular. And certain parts filled me with emotion of which most films of this nature are devoid. And as a third point, it seems as though the film is, refreshingly, making an argument against vigilante-ism, making the character much like his foes. The film almost plays out like a revisionist western, with some semblance of moral clarity, creating a negative reaction to the violence the hero commits as well. And indeed I watched with fear as he carried out his mission, instead of cheering for him. But I think this is only what it seems like, and not what it is. I think the film attempts to make itself as a statement against the character’s final actions, by some of its plot points, which I will not reveal, but I also think it fails to do so for a number of reasons. So I am two minds about Death Sentence. There are very good things about it, but they are undermined by just as many bad things.
I was kept in its trance for some very notable reasons. There is a single shot (using a steadicam as far as I can tell) which carouses an entire parking structure as Bacon attempts to free his pursuers, which led me to believe that the cinematographer is of greater talent than his credits would make him seem. There are performances by Kevin Bacon and John Goodman that are fantastic. Bacon plays the tortured vigilante father with crazed sadness and some subtlety in the quieter scenes. John Goodman, as the father of one of the gang members, and supplier of weapons, is scathingly vibrant and a great foil to Bacon’s character. And in perhaps the best part of the film, when he sells some guns to the grief stricken father, he gives an oration about the business of selling guns, a monologue that might be construed as an oration on the military industrial complex, as it relates to violence as a business. I found these things about the film unexpectedly good, and Bacon’s father character a tragic figure on the level of the figures from the Romantic period. There seems to be something more human about it than most films of this nature, but there are other elements which detract from it.
There are elements of this film that are unnecessary and repulsive. Every thug has tattoos, dresses in black clothing and has a wallet chain. (Even John Goodman sports a shirt that looks as if its been designed by Gene Simmons’ clothing company This fits their characters, yes, but the only ‘bad guys’ are these folks, and of course, they all listen to rock music and drive muscle cars. These gang members have style and class, and they are reasonably intelligent and good villains, but that’s all they are. We get a sense of the evils of the streets. We get a sense of the "good” middle class vigilante, a mild mannered man fighting against the tough men of the streets. We therefore have polar opposites, street punks, and ‘normal’ people. The lead gang member, Billy, seems to be the only round character on the side of the street punks, a man nearly as emotionally wounded as Bacon’s character. But he’s the lone exception and still a ruthless, vile man. There seems to be a strange, perhaps unintentional bias towards the middle class America, the “normal” people who live out their careers and lives in nice neighborhoods, and we are never shown a street kid, anybody within the realm of the streets that is reasonable. And no one that dresses like them is reasonable, either. The tragedy of the film as it pertains to the family is good in its conception, but is played as though the characters that die only exist to die. Yes, they fuel a rage that is central to the film, but in a way that is unnecessary. My main problems then, are that the film attempts to rise above its own standards as a vigilante film, but barely transcends black and white morality, and tries to say that vigilante-ism just adds to the problem, but doesn’t do anything to expound upon it. It tries to be a great vigilante movie, but does not succeed.
The last great vigilante movie, and I mean GREAT was Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which makes a statement about urban decay in the 1970’s which elevates it above its genre. Death Sentence attempts to do the same thing with family life and the gradual decay of the modern man into a thug like those he tries to kill. It even includes a montage that is borrowed straight out of Taxi Driver. It also has a pop score reminiscent of Scorsese films, like a rock soundtrack for scenes from gang life. But it shows it in a way that evokes a feeling that this culture is violence, rather than the violence springs from urban decay. I don’t think is making an intentional connection to this culture and violence, but it seems that way. Taxi Driver explains the growth of decay as a natural adjunct of civilization and as well as gun culture and consumer culture itself, with the sequence in which a gun dealer offers Robert de Niro various other things, like a Cadillac. Death Sentence just shows us that the gang members listen to rock music and have tattoos and buy guns, and that their leader is human too, and has a family, but it makes no great statement about anything that it attempts to.
If anything redeems the film, it is the sympathy that arises from the main character as we watch his quick decline, rather than wanting him to kill anyone else. We want him to stop, and try to piece together what’s left in his life. And this attitude towards the film make sit better than something like the Death Wish films, (or the novel it was based on, for that matter). It is framed also, by home videos of the family that are much more interesting to look at than most of the film itself, creating a sense of family life that has been completely eviscerated. In short, I hated the way the film made me feel, but I think that element of it makes it a better film, rather than a film making me want more violence. So I give it a decent rating, for all of its unnecessary death, and faults, it is a film that evokes a more human reaction than most of its contemporaries. My complaints stem from the fact that it tries to be like Taxi Driver, and almost succeeds in its own fashion but stops absolutely short. I give it two and a half stars for almost working.
Now the film almost works, but the DVD extras, if you want to give them the laudatory term extras, are completely nonfunctional. The DVD itself comes with the always unappreciated mandatory previews that on some DVD players you can’t even skip by pressing menu and have to fast forward as if you were using VHS again. The special features amount to merely scene selections, language, trailers, and two Fox Movie Channel Presents featurettes that are barely decent. The featurette “making the scene” is of course a run of the mill featurette, and the second, in which three students interview Bacon is much better and much more informational, but is basic at best.

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Death Sentence (2007) DVD review written by: Brian Reis

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