Death Sentence

James Wan, director of the first Saw, unconvincingly enters the realm of human emotions with this Death Wish–like revenger about a family man (Bacon) reaping gang violence after he goes vigilante on the thug who randomly killed his son. Scenes of mourning are swaddled in syrupy music, a sign of insecure directing. Meanwhile, the film just wants to kick some punk ass, which it does, gorily, in an extended, catastrophic third act. Between Death Sentence and Saw’s Jigsaw killer, it’s tempting to view Wan as an especially tiresome moralist.