First off,
give it up to James Wan. Not as a writer or director or anything…after all, I
can’t stand the Saw movies and I never even bothered with Dead Silence. But with
his latest film, Death Sentence, he’s managed to hook me before I have seen a single
frame of film. Hell, before I even knew what the story was about, even. Death
Sentence is one of those exquisite titles that pretty much negates the need
for a film to live up to it. It’s probably better if it doesn’t. But I would
see the stodgiest period romance if it were titled Death Sentence. I would watch Wild
Hogs 2 if it were subtitled Death Sentence. That just lets you
know right up front that some lives will be ending in a not-nice manner, and
that sort of brazen moniker is far too rare these days.
Oh, about
the film….the trailer is actually here. And it’s indeed a Death Wish (Another
perfect title. Pretty much any two-word title where “death” is the first word
qualifies. How could you say no to, say, Death Cereal or Death Rabbit?) redux that
makes no bones about it. A dad (Kevin Bacon) watches helplessly as his son is
gunned down by hoodlums in a random store robbery. He catches one of the goons,
but somehow the kid gets off clean and clear. Now….it’s time….
To.
Bring.
The.
Bacon.
That
tagline doesn’t appear in the trailer, but that’s only because this film is a
good two decades late. The twist here is that when Bacon kills the first goon,
who happens to be the brother of the lead goon, they decide to target the rest
of the Bacon clan in the film, primarily wife Kelly
(“Where is your Xenu now, bitch?” BLAM).
Now, it’s a race as to who gets revenge first. Along the way, Bacon decides to buy lots of guns from a dealer named Bones
Darly (John Goodman). Why are you still reading this? You should be camping out
at the nearest theater to pre-order tickets, goddamnit.
The
trailer is up in beautiful Quicktime, and you can see it by clicking here. Death Sentence will close out the
summer onslaught in grand style on August 31.