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Death Sentence

Many good elements, but they didn’t add up.

• Premise

The movie was muddled because it tried to be two things. It tried to be a revenge thriller and a morality tale. Either one could’ve worked, but not both. The Brave One, with Jodie Foster, did a better job of walking this fine line as it focused more on the drama. For a revenge thriller, moviegoers want to see movie justice- and that means Kevin Bacon should’ve offed the gang behind his son’s murder without any further loss to him…or, say, the gang could’ve kidnapped his wife and son and Kevin would’ve saved them at the end.

• Logic, Structure

Around the middle, Kevin should’ve realized that the bad guys may have found his briefcase and then acted to protect his wife and kid. Worse, he didn’t take them out of town to a secret hotel, but relied on police protection. That protection may work in real-life, but it was movie-obvious that the gang was going to kill the cops and sneak in. Then, to top off this sequence that practically ruined the movie, the detective was angry at Kevin when she met him in the hospital after his wife and kid were shot- but she was the one who arranged the protection and Kevin contritely listened to her! He didn’t do anything new in terms of vengeance between those two scenes.

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