Death Sentence (2007)

Director: James Wan

Writers: Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, Brian Garfield

Composer: Charlie Clouser

Starring: Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, Aisha Tyler, Garrett Hedlund, Kelly Preston, Jordan Garrett, Stuart Lafferty, Matt O'Leary, Edi Gathegi, Hector Atreyu Ruiz, Kanin Howell

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Protect What's Yours

Plot: When a family falls victim to a vicious attack perpetrated as a gang initiation ritual, the vengeful father, Nick Hume, vows to track down each person involved in the crime. A sympathetic homicide detective questions her pledge to assist Hume after suspecting that he may have turned to murder as a means of exacting his revenge.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? No.

After watching this now it's no surprise that it was based on the novel written by Brian Garfield, the same cat who wrote DEATH WISH (1974) 'cause it's about the same theme and at times it feels like it's a DEATH WISH remake but with a few tweaks.  Bacon does a good job, as does the rest of the cast I suppose, but it's John Goodman that made me sit up a little more in my seat.  He's great.  He plays Bones Darley, a drug and gun dealer with a foul mouth and an attitude to match it.  Great casting choice on that one.  For the most part it's a standard revenge flick but it doesn't slow down much and the action and story move along at a pretty good pace.  What I didn't care for is some of what James Wan brought to the table like some scenes saturated in blue (think SAW (2004)).  Then there's the slow motion shots of the gang walking and looking badass with the pulsing, pounding score accentuating it.  It's such a cliche that it'll probably cheese you off or make you laugh.  There's another moment where Nick (Bacon) knows he's going to go batshit on these mother fuckers and kill every last one of them.  Yep.  The moment of realization is done in slow motion and with a pulse-pounding score that tells you more than you need to know.  The only thing that would have been worse is if they had flashing words on the screen saying he's really pissed and he's going to kill them.  There are some more little things that bugged me a bit but it's the combination of them all that equal me not watching this again, which is a shame because it's a pretty good film.