Death Sentence (film)

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Death Sentence
Promotional film poster
Directed by	James Wan
Produced by	Ashok Amritraj Howard Baldwin Karen Elise Baldwin
Written by	Brian Garfield (novel/uncredited screenplay) Ian Jeffers (screenplay)
Starring	Kevin Bacon Garrett Hedlund Kelly Preston Jordan Garrett Stuart Lafferty Aisha Tyler John Goodman
Music by	Charlie Clouser
Cinematography	John R. Leonetti
Editing by	Michael N. Knue
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	August 31, 2007
Running time	110 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Gross revenue	$9,109,405 (USA)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Death Sentence is a 2007 film loosely based on the 1975 novel by Brian Garfield. The film is directed by Saw director James Wan, and stars Kevin Bacon as Nick Hume, a man who becomes a vengeful vigilante killer after his son is murdered by a gang as an initiation ritual. The film premiered on August 31, 2007. It was filmed at and it took place in Columbia, South Carolina.

1 Plot Summary
2 Cast
3 Critical reception
4 Trivia
5 DVD Release
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Plot Summary

The story revolves around Nick Hume, who is a loving husband, and father of two sons. After a hockey game, he and his son Brendan are forced off the road by two cars; they pull into a gas station because the tank is almost empty anyway. While Nick's son Brendan is getting a drink, the cars arrive at the gas station, where it is revealed that it had been a gang that forced them there. Brendan is killed as an initiation rite, and Nick embarks on an emotional and moral downward spiral as he tracks down the gang members and repays them in full for what happened to his son.

[edit] Cast

Kevin Bacon as Nick Hume
Garrett Hedlund as Billy Darley
Kelly Preston as Helen Hume
John Goodman as Bones Darley
Yorgo Constantine as Michael Behring
Aisha Tyler as Detective Jessica Wallis
Matt O'Leary as Joe Darley
Leigh Whannell as Spink
Stuart Lafferty as Brendan Hume
Jordan Garrett as Lucas Hume

[edit] Critical reception

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 16% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 91 reviews, as of September 14, 2007.^[1] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 36 out of 100, based on 24 reviews.^[2] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 1/2 stars out of 4 and remarked that in the 1970s, author Brian Garfield came to Chicago to research the city because the novel Death Sentence is set there. Ebert, Jay Robert Nash, John McHugh and Bill Granger agreed to meet him at the Billy Goat, a restaurant on the lower level of Michigan Avenue and Garfield dedicated the book to them. Ebert wrote that Death Wish II was set in Los Angeles, even though Death Sentence is set in Chicago, and wrote "now here at last, in 2007, is Death Sentence, and it is filmed in, that's right, South Carolina. It doesn't follow the book, either." Ebert continued, "In the Bronson movies, the hero just looked more and more determined until you felt if you tapped his face, it would explode. In Death Sentence, Bacon acts out a lot more" and also wrote "Wan's movie is very efficient." Roger Ebert concluded, "There is a courtroom scene of true surprise and suspense, and some other effective moments, but basically this is a movie about a lot of people shooting at each other..."^[3]

Author Brian Garfield, who wrote the novel the film is loosely based on, stated on his official website that the film is exciting and thought-provoking and said he feels the shooting script is excellent. Garfield said, "While I could have done with a bit less blood-and-thunder, I think it's a stunningly good movie. In the details of its story it's quite different from the novel, but it's a movie, not a novel. In its cinematic way it connects with its audience and it makes the same point the book makes, and those are the things that count."^[4]

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

During the scene when Nick has the junkie call Billy, you can see "Billy the Puppet" from James Wan's Saw films painted on the wall behind Billy.
Judith Roberts plays a judge named Shaw, which is a reference to Mary Shaw who is played by the same actress in James Wan's Dead Silence.
When Nick beats the junkie and forces him to tell him where the mental institution is, the junkie says Stygian Street, the exact same street that detectives Tapp and Sing go to apprehend Jigsaw in the first Saw film.
In the garage chase scene, the crew had to build a handheld rig which allowed the camera to be passed from one person to the other so that they could film the whole chase in one shot. To compensate, Kevin Bacon had to ride a go cart from level to level to make it seem like he ran the distance in order to catch up with the camera.