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Death Sentence

They don't get much worse than this

By BRETT MICHEL | September 5, 2007

2.5 Stars

DEATH SENTENCE: Kevin Bacon as a vengeful "Fortune 500 motherfucker."

We have the sordid story of vigilante justice as administered by Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon, impersonating Edvard Munch’s The Scream), a family man with “perfect kids,” or “some Fortune 500 motherfucker,” as one of his future victims observes before facing his vengeful wrath. In a gang initiation, a young thug “ices” the most perfect of Hume’s two sons, who’s a hockey star. After this “animal” is arrested and then released, Hume visits his tool shed to select the perfect instrument with which to settle accounts — just one reminder that the film’s director is James Wan, the torture-porn veteran responsible for the Saw series. Wan can deliver shocks, but when he tries drama, it’s unintentional comedy. An all-out war between Hume and his gangland prey culminates in a ridiculously over-the-top shootout in an abandoned mental hospital. If you love awful movies, they don’t get much better (worse?) than this.

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Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Movies, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, More

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