Death Sentence is a 2007 American vigilante action thriller film directed by James Wan and starring Kevin Bacon as Nick Hume, a man who takes the law into his own hands after his son is murdered by a gang member as an initiation ritual; Hume must then protect his family from the gang's resulting vengeance.

It earned over $16 million and received negative reviews from critics but became more mixed over time and developed a cult following.

Nick Hume, a businessman living in Columbia, South Carolina, watches his son Brendan's hockey game.

During an apparent robbery of the gas station, Joe Darley, a new gang member, slices Brendan's throat with a machete.

The gang ambushes Nick on the streets, leading to a tense chase inside a car park.

The suitcase Nick dropped during the chase is delivered to his office, and he finds a phone number inside.

Nick interrogates Heco, a gang member, and learns that their lair is an abandoned mental hospital that they call "The Office."

After a shootout which the remaining gang members are killed, he and Billy encounter and seriously wound each other in the chapel.

Wan hired Garfield to write the first few drafts for the film, with the final script being written by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers.

20th Century Fox acquired North American distribution rights to the film with independent distributors distributing the film in other countries however foreign versions though distributed by independent distributors retain references to Fox in Latin America, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Benelux, Germany, Scandinavia, Turkey and Japan while versions from France, Australia and other countries only have Hyde Park credited as presenter.

The critical consensus states: "A nonsensical plot and an absurd amount of violence make this revenge pic gratuitous and overwrought.

Ebert called Death Sentence "very efficient", praising "a courtroom scene of true surprise and suspense, and some other effective moments", but concluded that "basically this is a movie about a lot of people shooting at each other".

Club contends the film is "certainly never boring"; he felt that director James Wan was "too busy jamming the accelerator to realize that his movie's spinning out of control.

"[9] Matt Zoller Seitz of The New York Times said, "Aside from a stunning three-minute tracking shot as the gang pursues Nick through a parking garage, and Mr. Bacon's hauntingly pale, dark-eyed visage, Mr. Wan's film is a tedious, pandering time-waster.

[12] Similarly, Bill Gibron of PopMatters felt the film was "a significant movie" and "a wonderfully tight little thriller".

[15] Garfield further explained in an interview: "I think that, except for its ludicrous violence toward the end, the Death Sentence movie does depict its character's decline and the stupidity of vengeful vigilantism," adding, "As a story it made the point I wanted it to make.