Revenge is a dish best served...with Bacon.
This is the first of the two vigilante-themed movies that are coming out in next couple of weeks, the other being Jodie Foster's next flick, The Brave One. Death Sentence is the new take on the novel of the same name by Brian Garfield. The book already inspired the notorious (and superior) Death Wish (1974) with Charles Bronson, who was truly terrifying as the father who starts killing after dark, consumed by the grief of suffering a loss in the family.

In Death Sentence, Kevin Bacon plays Nick Hume, a good-natured executive with a perfect life. He's married to a beautiful woman Helen (Kelly Preston) and they have two loving sons, Lucas and Brendan (Jordan Garret and Stuart Lafferty, respectively). But one night, after coming back from a hockey game, their world gets torn apart when a street gang, in the process of initiating a new member, randomly chooses to murder Brendan at a gas station. Nick helplessly watches his son dying, and while trying to save him, he accidentally sees the face of one of the thugs. While the family copes with the tragedy Nick is called upon to put away the thug by testifying in court. But nothing is what it seems to be as Nick decides to take the justice into his own hands.

The outcome of Death Sentence is frustrating; the film starts off so good and then inevitably settles into a bunch of people simply shooting at each other. I admire Kevin Bacon, over the course of the last couple of decades his terrific work in films such as JFK (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), Sleepers (1996) and Mystic River (2003) has been easily overlooked. But even though many will call his role in Death Sentence unconvincing, there are moments in his fearless performance that are utterly fascinating.

This film is the third feature by the young Aussie James Wan. He burst onto the scene with his original and terrifying horror flick Saw (2004), which spawned two mega-successful (but far inferior) sequels. He handled the newfound fame by directing the very mediocre Dead Silence earlier this year. Unfortunately for Wan, his newest feature is an overall disappointment.

Nevertheless, there is some good stuff here. Numerous scenes in Death Sentence are wide angle shots that purposefully distort the edges of the frame to give the viewer a deformed sense of reality. Furthermore, the film Wan and his cinematographer used is persistently grainy in order to evoke the grim and twisted nature of the movie. The cast also does an excellent job with their roles; Aisha Tyler truly excels as the detective investigating the case. Garrett Hedlund shines as the leader of the gang who looks as though he was raised by Lucifer himself, and John Goodman is great in a role so crucial to the plot that I can't really talk about it, but his scenes are all shot in a close-up of his face so that his cheeks can bounce up and down constantly whenever he opens his mouth. Finally, there is a parking lot action sequence, which includes a long, uninterrupted shot that goes on for a few minutes that is virtuoso brilliant.

Franky, Death Sentence is a movie of highs and lows where the moments of brilliance are too often weighted down with poorly conceived concepts. View at your own risk.