Death Sentence

Friday, February 8, 2008

I watched this with Shenan as a sort of follow-up to watching Death Wish a few weeks back. It's based on the book that was a sequel to the original book Death Wish, but the movie itself is not a sequel, it's just a revenge movie in a similar vein. This time with Kevin Bacon in the Charles Bronson role, a choice that works well because he's not at all a badass, and therefore is more believable than Bronson as a regular guy pushed to the edge. Bronson is great in Death Wish, but you never really believe him as some liberal pussy in the early scenes.

Death Sentence makes an earnest but failed attempt at being a serious, anti-violence picture. It makes the same mistake most of these films do, which is to subvert it's own anti-violence message by having the violence be the most entertaining part of the film. Also, pretty much all the dramatic scenes don't work.

The action, on the other hand, is another matter. I wish there was more of it, but I must say that I enjoyed the high style and energy the director brought to the action scenes. So, from that point of view, if you like this kind of crap, then Death Sentence is a good one. An unremarkable revenge film punched-up by some strong action scenes.

In retrospect, 2007 was a pretty good year for action movies. When even an otherwise mediocre film like this has 3 or 4 memorable action sequences, perhaps the genre is having a mini-renaissance.