Bacon is no Charles Bronson, but that's just as well, considering that we're more inclined to believe him as the mild-mannered family man. He looks like the kind of well-adjusted, suit-and-tie guy who'd take some pretty serious provoking before resorting to gun violence. Death Sentence opens with a series of home videos capturing moments of genuine affection between Nick Hume (Bacon), his wife (Kelly Preston) and their two teenage sons. My best advice to you: Don't get too attached to the Humes.

Generally speaking, the problem with vigilante movies is that the only characters worth rooting for get killed off in the first act. Death Sentence eliminates the family's golden boy early on, but keeps the others alive a bit longer, using a second dose of gratuitous cruelty to fuel Nick's final descent into gangland retribution. There may be some psychological value in considering a scenario like this, but Wan isn't interested in that. He views the setup as an opportunity to entertain and upset the audience.

Do "vengeance is mine" stories require a deeper philosophical dimension? Not necessarily, although Death Sentence pretends to have it both ways. Wan provides the obligatory scene in the hospital corridor where Preston hears the news that her son has died and collapses in anguish. This would be painful if it were anywhere near sincere, but Wan isn't making Ordinary People here. Instead, the moment feels like just another brushstroke in the director's stylistic arsenal, calculated yet not quite human.

Wan specializes in the violence: shotgun blasts that chew through flesh and scenery, rusty tools that double as deadly weapons, and wounds that yield deep purple bruises or nasty, jagged scars. He lights every scene as if it takes place in the county morgue, the action embalmed in a sickly green tinge that makes Hume and his family look like walking corpses. The gang members, by contrast, with their shaved heads and sinister tattoos, come across as inner-city savages. Death Sentence feels more like a punk vampire movie than an exercise in any sort of realism we recognize.

Still, it's easy to understand why an actor of Bacon's caliber might have been attracted to the role, and he goes a long way to elevate the material. Bacon has a history of taking difficult parts, including roles in The Woodsman, Mystic River and soon Rails & Ties. This one is certainly meaty, and he plays it with something far deeper than mere bloodlust.

We understand the initial impulse that compels Hume to retaliate against the lowlife who killed his son. But to Billy Darley (Garrett Hedlund), the gang's ruthless leader, the calculation Hume saw as balancing the books instead registers as an opening salvo in an all-out war, and Darley is more than happy to bring the conflict out of the 'hood into Hume's upscale part of town.

Killers strike on city sidewalks in broad daylight, they bring menacing packages to his place of business and they eventually show up on the doorstep of his isolated suburban home. It is here that the horror really takes hold. Things were tough enough when Hume blamed himself for not preventing his son's death, but now, he is personally accountable for any retribution Darley's gang exacts on his family. Revenge cuts both ways, and it's plenty scary when it comes looking for you.

[as featured in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram]