Death Sentence is a riveting and exciting decent into one man's hell as his safe, comfortable world crumbles. It's a common plot of a persons life being shattered and them then seeking revenge, but this is done cleverly and leading to frantic action scenes. It's an 8 (a gripping piece of entertainment that is superbly crafted).
Nick Humle is a a middle aged, middle management man who is a stickler for rules, but when a gang member kills his son his world starts to fall apart. It transpires that the murder was just an initiation for gang membership, and when he learns that the prison sentence is going to be short, Nick changes his testimony and the guy walks free. As Nick's anger and frustration builds, he goes to confront the killer and in a scuffle, kills him. The gang discover that Nick killed their member and target him for murder. But in a thrilling car park chases and fight, he kills another. The police are suspicious that he has started a gang war but he tells them nothing. The gang then attack his family and Nick finally knows what he must do - end the gang war by entering a world he knows nothing of - guns, drugs and ghettos.
Firstly, the filming is great! There are great wide angle lens shots, dark saturated blacks and some sort of sharpening process applied that gives it all gritty feel, and some neat angles too. The acting by Kevin Bacon (who I'm not really much of a fan) and the gang are just right. Even the gun running gang leaders father played by comedy man John Goodman is no comedy at all, but convincingly scary. The action action is exciting, particular the chase the car parking building which has been so many times before, but hardly with such shear panicked terror.
There are a few negatives, the plot is not very original, and everyone seems to be slightly super human except for the police, who are slightly inept. But there is one thing that is really bad. At the end, for those whose brain is just simply not there, one of the characters states the bleeding obvious of the plot to explain it all. Any hint of subtly is thrown out the window! I would like think that it shows how dumb the gang member who said it was, but I fear that it was directed at the viewer, and it really detracted from the film enjoyment.
Death Sentence is a riveting and exciting decent into one man's hell as his safe, comfortable world crumbles. It's a common plot of a persons life being shattered and them then seeking revenge, but this is done cleverly and leading to frantic action scenes. It's an 8 (a gripping piece of entertainment that is superbly crafted).
Nick Humle is a a middle aged, middle management man who is a stickler for rules, but when a gang member kills his son his world starts to fall apart. It transpires that the murder was just an initiation for gang membership, and when he learns that the prison sentence is going to be short, Nick changes his testimony and the guy walks free. As Nick's anger and frustration builds, he goes to confront the killer and in a scuffle, kills him. The gang discover that Nick killed their member and target him for murder. But in a thrilling car park chases and fight, he kills another. The police are suspicious that he has started a gang war but he tells them nothing. The gang then attack his family and Nick finally knows what he must do - end the gang war by entering a world he knows nothing of - guns, drugs and ghettos.
Firstly, the filming is great! There are great wide angle lens shots, dark saturated blacks and some sort of sharpening process applied that gives it all gritty feel, and some neat angles too. The acting by Kevin Bacon (who I'm not really much of a fan) and the gang are just right. Even the gun running gang leaders father played by comedy man John Goodman is no comedy at all, but convincingly scary. The action action is exciting, particular the chase the car parking building which has been so many times before, but hardly with such shear panicked terror.
There are a few negatives, the plot is not very original, and everyone seems to be slightly super human except for the police, who are slightly inept. But there is one thing that is really bad. At the end, for those whose brain is just simply not there, one of the characters states the bleeding obvious of the plot to explain it all. Any hint of subtly is thrown out the window! I would like think that it shows how dumb the gang member who said it was, but I fear that it was directed at the viewer, and it really detracted from the film enjoyment.
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