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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	Novel: Brian Garfield Screenplay: Ian Jeffers
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)
All Movie Guide 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. Tagline:

Protect What's Yours

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

Plot

The film begins with home videos of the Hume family – Nick (Kevin Bacon), Helen (Kelly Preston), Brendan (Stuart Lafferty), and their youngest son Lucas (Jordan Garrett). Nick gives Brendan a hockey stick for Christmas, and then teaches him how to hit a puck (along with his hockey skills progressively getting better, including being awarded MVP for his team). Lucas is more like his mother, and likes to paint. Nick works as a risk assessment executive for a big firm. He briefly talks with his co-worker Owen (Rich Ceraulo) about an account, which had a statistic that married men with two kids are more likely to live longer. At dinner, Nick promises to drive Brendan to tomorrow night's hockey game, since it’s in the city. Helen won't be able to make it, since she has to tend to something Lucas has to do the same night. After the hockey game, Brendan says that some of his friends are thinking about going to college in Canada. Naturally, he wants to go with them so that he can pursue playing hockey professionally. Nick thinks that it’s too far away, but eventually says that he’s okay with it. Two cars speed down the road without their headlights on. Nick flashes his lights to remind them, but they speed past him, then come back and speed up ahead of them. A startled Nick ends up turning off the street. Nick doesn’t know where the freeway ramp is, and finds that he’s running low on gas. They stop at a gas station, where Nick starts to fill his car. After Brendan goes for a drink, Nick calls Helen and jokes that their son is going to run away to Canada for college and they’ll never see him again. Meanwhile, the two speeding cars pull up to the gas station, and all the men inside get out wearing masks. They burst into the store and tell the clerk and Brendan to keep their hands up. The clerk makes a move for his gun, and has his chest blown apart by a shotgun. The leader of the masked guys urges one of his buddies to kill Brendan. Nick tries to run to the store, but he is hit by a truck that leaves the scene. Unable to get to his feet in time, Nick is too late - one of the men slits Brendan's throat open with a machete. The masked thugs run back into their cars, except for Brendan’s killer, who’s still shook up about what he just did. Before the killer can catch up with the others, Nick tackles him. He removes his mask and sees his face, but gets kneed in the side by the killer, who runs into the middle of the street. Upset that his friends left him, he does not see a car which hits him from behind. While driving away, gang leader Billy Darley (Garrett Hedlund) takes off his mask. Bodie (Edi Gathegi) asks if they should go back for Joe (Matt O'Leary), aka Brendan's killer. Billy says that he’s a man now and can take the subway, not knowing that he’s been injured. Nick rushes to Brendan, who’s painfully dying from his wound. They are taken to the hospital, where Nick is forced to wait outside while the doctors do what they can. Helen and Lucas arrive at the hospital just in time to hear that Brendan is dead. At the police station, Detective Wallis (Aisha Tyler) has six suspects in a line-up, and asks him to identify his son’s killer. Nick positively identifies Joe as being the killer, and remarks on how young he looks. Nick plans to go to court for a pre-trial hearing. He asks if Helen wants to come, but she tells him to go alone. While lying in bed, Helen says that the hockey team wants to have a memorial for Brendan at the next hockey game. Lucas has a hard time going to sleep, and so he walks into Brendan’s room, breaking down and crying when he looks at a photo taken with his brother. At court the next day, Nick and his attorney have a discussion over what they'll do with Joe Darley. Nick wants him to be put away for the rest of his life, but since evidence was scant (the gas station didn’t have a camera, the machete disappeared, the only blood found on Joe was his own after getting hit by the car, and the only witness is Nick), the best they can do is a sentence for 3-5 years. Wallis mentions that Brendan’s murder was an initiation kill for the gang. In order to become part of a gang, they have to kill an innocent. Nick can’t believe that his son was murdered for such a stupid reason, and is ultimately given the choice about testifying or not. At the day of the hearing, Nick tells the judge that he is not going to testify, claiming that it was dark and he could no longer identify Joe as the killer. Wallis is surprised by this, and the judge releases Joe on bail. Nick exits the courtroom first and waits in his car to see the gang celebrate Joe being freed. The gang takes off in their two cars, and Nick follows them to their neighborhood where Billy drops Joe off at his apartment building, giving him a wad of cash thereafter. Nick drives back to his house and looks for weapons in his tool shed. He finally decides on a rusty blade, and then Lucas walks in. Nick keeps the blade out of sight, and gets after Lucas for picking up the machete. Lucas asks where Brendan was killed, and Nick tells him where the gas station is. Helen also walks in and asks what’s going on. Nick tells them that he forgot something at the office, and he’ll be back later. He drives back to Joe’s apartment building, and sits in his car. Nick contemplates changing his mind, but then sees an opportunity when he sees Joe throw away some garbage. Nick gets out of his car and walks towards the building, but stops when a girl walks out and notices him acting strange. The girl leaves, and so Nick goes to the garbage bin where Joe is. Joe is startled, and then remembers who Nick is. Nick grabs onto him and hits him repeatedly. The fight continues with them getting into a struggle around a corner area where Joe grabs the knife and slices Nick’s hand. Nick takes the knife back and stabs Joe in the chest. After Joe dies, Nick drives off, where he wipes the fingerprints off the blade, and then tosses it into a river. When he gets home, Helen and Lucas are arranging video tapes while watching home videos of Brendan. Nick hides what he does by telling Helen that he slipped and cut his hand. While taking a shower, Nick breaks down and cries, while Helen comforts him. The next day at work, Owen comes into Nick’s office and tells him that the company will pay for him to attend therapy if he wants, but he declines. Wallis shows up and tells Nick that Joe was found dead. Nick tries to act normal and says that it was probably another gang killing. Wallis gets suspicious when she sees Nick’s bandaged hand, and ends up leaving. Meanwhile, Billy goes to a chop-shop owned by his father, Bones (John Goodman). Billy pays him some money back that he owes him, and Bones make it clear that he hates him. Billy then goes to his gang’s resting place, where Bodie informs him that Joe was murdered. The gang later meets at their bar and toast to Joe’s memory, but Billy says they should be doing something constructive instead of drinking, like going after Joe’s killer. They all deduce that it wasn’t a rival gang, and then one of the goons says that his sister saw someone in a suit lurking around the apartment building when she left that night. Billy figures that it was Nick, and finds that his picture is in the paper for his son’s death. The goon shows the paper to his sister and she confirms that Nick was the lurking man. After Nick leaves from work, Bodie walks behind him and prepares to shoot him, but Nick knocks the gun away with his briefcase and beats Bodie. The others come out from hiding and chase after Nick. Billy fires at him in the middle of the street, and the gang chases him through alleys. Nick, panicked and scared, runs for his life and is narrowly shot by Billy. He loses his briefcase and runs through a kitchen, locking the door. He finds an exit and continues to run. Eventually, he winds up at a parking garage, and accidentally causes a car’s alarm to go off. He runs up through the levels of the garage, jumping on other cars so that their alarms will go off and distract the gang, which works. A goon runs to the roof as well and searches for him with his pistol, and Nick distracts him by unlocking his car, and then tackles him to the pavement. He smashes his head onto the ground and beats him up. Nick tries to enter his car, but the goon grabs him from behind, so he smashes his body through the car window behind him. Nick unlocks the door and smashes the goon’s head with the car door. He tries to shoot Nick, but misses. They continue to fight inside the car, and it starts to roll back towards the edge of the roof. Nick gets the upper hand and ties the seatbelt around the guy’s throat. Nick jumps out of the car just before it falls off the roof, killing the henchman. Nick drives away, along with the surviving gang members when they hear police sirens in the distance. Billy, however, retrieves Nick’s briefcase, which contained his wallet. While speeding through the streets, Nick gets a call from his wife, who's upset that Lucas is nowhere to be found, but Nick has an idea of where he is. He hangs up and speeds off to the gas station, where sure enough Lucas is. He tries to get him in the car, but Lucas refuses to leave. He finally breaks down and tells him that he should’ve been the one to die, since the family could go on without Lucas better than they could without Brendan. Nick gets him inside the car and drives him home. The next day, Bodie heads to Nick's workplace with a package. A security guard tries to get him to sign in for the package, but Bodie ignores him and goes up in the elevator. He walks through the office, yelling for Nick and pushing co-workers around. When he finally finds him, he gives him the package and tells him that he won’t have to worry about dying alone. Security guards escort Bodie out of the building. Nick opens the package and sees that it’s his briefcase. He looks through his wallet and finds that his family picture has all the faces marked with red. On the back of the picture is a phone number, and so he calls. Billy answers, and taunts Nick. Nick tells him that he’ll gut him like he did with his friend. Billy tells him that Joe was his brother, and promises to come for the rest of his family and hangs up. Nick panics and calls Wallis. He tells her that the gang has threatened to kill his family, and pleads with her to send over cops to protect his wife and son. Nick tells Helen to stay at home with Lucas. He drives home and locks all the doors/windows. Wallis shows up and tells him that she’s going to leave a cop car outside for the night. She thinks that Nick killed Joe and brought this upon himself. Helen gets upset with Nick, since she knew that something was wrong with him over the last couple of days. Nick runs outside and tells Wallis that he doesn’t care what happens to him, just as long as his family is safe. She tells him that the cops are on the lookout for Billy and his gang, and leaves. That night, Nick stays awake while Helen and Lucas sleep. Two cops wait outside in their car. Suddenly, Nick hears a car horn. He goes to the front window and sees that the two cops have had their throats sliced open; the horn is from the dead driver’s head resting on it. Before he can react, the gang attack him. He follows up by beating one of them with a baseball bat, but retreats upstairs while a goon tries to shoot him with a shotgun. They wind up in the bathroom, where Nick pulls the rug out from underneath him, causing him to land hard on his back. Another goon tries to shoot Nick, but he shuts the door on the shotgun, which causes him to shoot the other guy in the leg. Nick then tackles the henchman down the staircase, landing hard on the floor. Billy and his boys grab Helen and Lucas, bringing them downstairs, then they kill everyone (Billy shoots Lucas in the head, Helen through the chest, and Nick in the chest). Satisfied, the gang leaves while the Hume family are all left shot. At the hospital, Wallis tells him that this stops now. She doesn’t know why he’s still alive, but he’s been given a second chance. She tells him that Helen is dead, and Lucas is unconscious. Nick leaves his room and frantically tries to find Lucas. When he finds him, the doctor tells him that Lucas may never wake up. Wallis leaves Nick alone in the room, and Nick sits down next to the bed. He tells Lucas that he was drawn more to Brendan because he’s more like him, whereas Lucas is like Helen. He apologizes for everything that’s happened, and then leaves through the window in the bathroom. Wallis enters the room and sees that Nick has escaped, but also sees that Lucas is starting to move. Nick walks back to his house in the pouring rain and changes his clothes. He bandages his head again, puts on a cap, and goes to the bank to withdraw all of the family’s saving accounts, putting the money inside a backpack. He also calls Owen and tells him to trace where the phone number from the picture came from. Owen runs it down and finds that it’s from a bar. Nick goes to the bar and asks the bartender where Billy is. After some violence and bribery, the bartender tells him where to find the junkie henchman, and then Nick asks him where he can find a gun. Bones is sitting in his office when Nick shows up and requests guns. Bones is wary about selling them to him, since he doesn’t know him, but once he sees the money he starts to act more friendly. He shows Nick his secret stash of guns and lines out some pistols for him. Nick buys a .357 magnum revolver, a .45 colt pistol and a long 12-gauge shotgun from him. Since he’s paying so much, Bones throws in the owner manuals for the guns and extra ammo. Before Nick leaves, Bones cocks a gun and tells him that he knows he’s there to kill Billy. Bones tells Nick that he’s Billy’s father, and while he doesn’t care, he will kill Nick if he asks where Billy is. Nick leaves and goes back to his house, where he gets acquainted with the guns in his tool shed. He fumbles around with them, but eventually gets more familiar and comfortable with them. After shaving his head and puts on Brendan’s leather jacket, he proceeds to where the junkie lives. He blasts open the door, then pistol whips the junkie and asks where Billy is. He tells him that he’s at the gang’s territory, which is an abandoned mental institution. He then has the junkie call Billy, and tells him that Nick is still alive, then Nick blows his brains out. Billy gets ready to move when Bones drives up. He says that he doesn’t care what happens to him, but he does care if it can come back to him. Billy, fed up, shoots Bones through the eye and steals his car. Nick steals the junkie’s car and drives to the abandoned mental institution. He sees a goon sitting in a van outside, and so he rams his way through the gate and through the van. Nick enters the building with his guns and looks for Billy. While in a shootout with gang members, he blasts a goon’s leg off and then blasts his chest apart with the shotgun. He then chases down another gang member and blasts him through the window. He’s chased up the stairs, and he fires down at the remaining two goons. Billy shows up, sees the mess outside, and enters the building with his gun. While stalking Nick, a henchman walks into a room and doesn’t realize that Nick is on the other side of the wall. Nick steps on broken glass, and the henchman aims for the wall. Nick is quicker on the draw and blows his chest open. When Nick finds Billy in the chapel, they open fire on each other, resulting in Nick getting shot in the chest, and Billy getting shot in the arm and losing his fingers. Bodie shoots Nick in the back and in the neck, and Nick shoots Bodie through the forehead. Nick unloads his gun into Billy’s body, then grabs his neck and sits down. Billy tries to shoot Nick but misses with his last bullets. Billy sits down on the pew next to Nick and comments how he looks like "one of us". Nick pulls out his last pistol and cocks it, asks Billy if he is ready, and finishes him off (though the act is unseen, it is heavily implied). Nick drives back home, where he parks on the front lawn. He stumbles inside and watches home videos of his family. Wallis and other cops arrive at the house, and find him sitting on the couch. Wallis tells him that Lucas woke up, and is going to survive. The film ends with Nick watching home videos, leaving his fate ambiguous.

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

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 wrote, "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]

Trivia

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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.
The Hume family is likely a reference to posthumous, Nick was given a second chance to live only to go out looking for death again.
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.
There are multiple nods to another vigilante film Taxi Driver. The first being that Nick does become a vigilante, the second in the mental institution shoot out, he gets shot in the neck and survives, the third when he shoots Billy Darley's fingers off, the same thing happened in Taxi Driver, and when Nick sits down next to Darley talking to him is the same thing Travis Bickle does.
15 people die in the film, as Moviebodycounts.com states