Death Sentence

Claudia Olivares

March 11, 2013

English 1A

K. Rogers

Death Sentence

The love a parent has for their child is endless. Many parents can agree that they would do anything to protect their child from someone. In the movie Death Sentence, Kevin Bacon plays the act of a father whose son was murdered by a man who did it in order to be in a gang. He went after the man and killed him himself. Since he killed one of the members of the gang it was as if he declared a war with all them. This would not be over until Bacon’s family was all dead. What makes Death Sentence a movie worth watching is the emotional connection, the role of the father, the music throughout the movie, and it is not a cheesy action movie. Death Sentence is definitely a movie worth watching.

The movie starts out with their eldest son Brendon, being the star hockey player of his high school. After his championship hockey game they had to stop at a gas station on their way home. The son gets off the car to go inside and buy a Slurpee meanwhile the dad is pumping gas. When out of nowhere two cars pull up with five guys masked all carrying guns and a machete. After shooting the cashier they walk up to the son and tell one of the men to kill him. He slices the son’s throat with a machete and runs out as fast as they can out the store. The father tackles the man who sliced his son’s throat and pulls off his mask. He gets a good look at the guys face and runs inside to help his son who was choking on his blood trying to survive. The father rushes to the hospital and as soon as his wife and son arrive, the doctor lets them know that his son didn’t make it. The father goes to the police station to identify who the guy and when they go to court the attorneys tell him that he will get a minimum sentence because the gas station had no cameras and there were no witnesses. This infuriates the father and when in the court room in front of the judge he tells her that he isn’t sure that he was the one who murdered his son Brendon.  This is when Kevin Bacon plans to kill the man who killed his son. He follows him to his house and when he has the chance to have him alone he stabs him. The other members of the gang want to find out who killed him because he was the sibling of the leader of the gang. When things couldn’t get any worse the gang goes to their house to go after his family. They kill his wife instantly and the son is alive through life support. This doesn’t stop Bacon at all. He leaves the hospital, cashes out all his savings, and goes after everyone. At the end Bacon is bruised and shot and he kills the whole gang. He knows that he won’t live so he goes to his house and plays a family video and sits on the couch watching it until he takes his last breath.

What makes this movie definitely worth watching is it is a movie where people can put themselves in the father’s shoes and only want to react the same way. It’s upsetting because what could only be proven in court is what determined the sentence. As clear as it was that the man murdered Brendon in order to be in a gang, it was not enough to have him put in for the time he deserved to be. Bacon did not want him walking out free after a few years in prison. He wanted the maximum sentence. So as a parent he did what he thought was only fair for this prick that killed his son. As the father and being there with his son the night he was killed, Bacon felt that he failed his wife and lost his family. Although there wasn’t much he could have done he blamed himself for his son’s death. You don’t really have to be a parent necessarily to put yourself in the father’s shoes; I get heated even thinking if it were my brother or one of my sisters.

Kevin Bacon plays the role of the father so well. Right when they leave the court house Bacon is waiting in the car and he sees the two cars from the night Brendon was killed, pull up. They are all clapping and cheering when they see that he was released and got away with the murder. Seeing him so aggravated and furious builds the adrenaline when he goes after the guy. He follows him to his apartment and waits in the car for a couple hours. He goes home and is going through his tool shed and finds a sharp knife. He then returns to the apartment complexes to wait for him to come out. The intense moment when he is face to face with him alone in the laundry room always has my heart racing. He is just staring at him speechless but very heated. The guy was young like twenty two years old; all he did was smile at him. All that did was piss off Bacon and he just attacks him. After the guy punched him Bacon just stabs him in the stomach. The look on Bacon’s face when he realizes what he has done, shows that he was at the mental state where he was so mad that he panics knowing he killed the guy.

What really contributed to this movie that made it add more suspense is the music that plays throughout the gloomy scenes. I cry every time I watch this movie because I couldn’t help but think of ever having to go through something like that. The music plays is more of a symphony and shows drastic sadness. It’s as if you cannot help but feel the pain and sadness of the family. Losing their son tore them apart and killed a piece of each and every one of them. When the youngest son walks in his brother Brendon’s room and just starts crying it gives me chills. I never thought I would think so negative or gruesome to hurt someone but this movie really made me realize how I would want the same if it were my child or even one of my siblings.

It is not a cheesy movie where the dad becomes this badass fighter who no one ever thought could fight. He struggles to fight off these guys and gets beat up pretty bad. He dies from being shot twice, his wife dies, and his son is only living because he is on life support. This isn’t a movie where everyone is happy in the end. His son is in critical condition fighting for his life, his son was murdered and so was his wife. He knew there was a great chance he wasn’t going to live, but he didn’t stop he did it for his family and couldn’t live with the fact that those guys “won”.

Hence, Death Sentence is definitely a movie worth watching because anyone could imagine wanting to react the same way. It is not a movie where you will be saying “when the hell will anyone go through this? Only Hollywood comes up with shit like this.” If anything you start to realize that many cases cannot be solved because there isn’t as much evidence. It is a movie that is realistic, and shows the love a parent has for their child and what extremes they would go to for the sake of their family.