Death Sentence: Violence in the Name of Justice

Death Sentence: Violence in the Name of Justice

By Matt Zoller Seitz on August 31, 2007 in Film Jump to Comments (0)

By Matt Zoller Seitz Based on Brian Garfield's novel—a sequel to the book that spawned the 1974 film Death Wish—James Wan's latest film is a middle-class white man's payback fantasy, leavened with phony references to class difference. To read the review, click here.

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Hate to tell y'all this, but most poor people in this country aren't minorities, and most minorities aren't poor.

Poverty rates are higher amongst people of color than people without color (aka white folk), yes, but in sheer number, poor people are predominately white (about 67% of people 50% or more below the poverty line are white)

This may be a 2007 spiritual cousin to Death Wish, but sometimes a revenge fantasy is just a revenge fantasy. I feel it's more classist and racist to assume that a film like this is classist and racist (though I can't say for sure having not seen this, and having no desire to see it).

Had Edward James Olmos or Denzel Washington been the father, that probably would have been viewed as racist, too (showing Blacks or Hispanics can't help but be violent).

Would you have been more comfortable with Mr. Wan's "middle-class white manâ€™s payback fantasy" had the protagonist been ethnically Chinese like Wan himself?

(Chow Yun-Fat could have carried this pic, and probably pulled in the same amount of financing)

And speaking of Denzel raging against the white collar (some anonymous marxist ranting in this comments already did), has anybody ever heard of a little picture called John Q?
Posted by XWL on 2007-09-01 00:48:00 Anonymous - Spike Lee has made a few movies that aren't far removed from your description. Not "Dirty Harry" movies, no, but featuring black men taking on the kind of white villains you describe, in one form or another. Did you miss "She Hate Me" or "Bamboozled"? Or, you know, almost all of his other movies?

Also, I don't know if you're the same "anonymous from before", but if so, let me quote you again:

"Middle-class white males are, for the most part, full of rage. Why? Maybe because most white males believe it is their inherent birthright to be upper class, as far away from those they percieve to be beneath them, both intellectually and morally, as possible."

This has nothing to do with any socio-economic facts, or any facts about who is in power, or anything like that. This is you (or a different "Anonymous") believing that you know the thoughts of strangers, and judging those thoughts as inferior. This is you stating your own prejudice. How do you presume to know what "most" (whatever that word means in this conversation) middle-class white males feel, anyway?

If you're the same Anonymous, you said that white middle-class males would feel little remorse for killing someone. And this seems to you to be a reasonable, non-prejudiced statement to make?
Posted by bill on 2007-09-01 00:00:00 Hey Bill, calling someone a racist for opining that the current socio-economic system we live under is inherently racist seems a bit absurd. The white-middle class P.O.V. is the dominant P.O.V. (not the only P.O.V., but the dominant one), and white people who scream racist whenever that is brought up are the biggest racists of them all, bullies who have been called out, who don't want to give up the positions of power they occupy via centuries of institutionalized racism, which is deseminated through the press, television, movies, radio, etc., etc. Do you honestly think you live in a country where a version of Dirty Harry could be made starring Denzel Washington, the target of his rage being, oh, say, the myriad white collar criminals who get away with literal and figurative murder each and every day? Because if that's the country you live in, I'd like you to buy me a plane ticket so I can come and visit.
Posted by Anonymous on 2007-08-31 23:18:00 Bill: "As far as anonymous, though, I'm afraid it is that simple. I'll say it again: he is claiming to know the thoughts and actions of the majority of an extremely large part of the population, and is claiming that these thoughts and behaviors are morally and intellectually inferior to his own."

Yeah, you're right about that. I think he makes a lot of valid points, but that aspect damages them.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2007-08-31 23:15:00 Steve - all very good points, and I appreciate your post. But let's be fair to Wan and the studios, at least a little: if they'd made the movie that we all agree would be more interesting, they would indeed be called racist, and by some of the people on this site, I would wager. But I don't disagree that the multi-racial gangs that they use in these films are not only wildly unrealistic but a pathetic, politically correct sop.

As far as anonymous, though, I'm afraid it is that simple. I'll say it again: he is claiming to know the thoughts and actions of the majority of an extremely large part of the population, and is claiming that these thoughts and behaviors are morally and intellectually inferior to his own. Where, exactly, am I misreading him? "Bluntness" doesn't cover it, and frankly the inability of you and Matt to see my point on this bugs me more than anything Matt said that got me started in the first place.

But then, you yourself claim to know the behavior of suburbanites yourself. Do you spend a lot of time in their cars, observing their door-lacking habits? I don't mean to sound glib, but seriously, there is an awful lot of presuming going on around here.
Posted by bill on 2007-08-31 22:58:00 Alright, let's open up the ol' racial powder keg. Bill, I think Matt hit the nail on the head with his comments about the links between minorities and the poor. Although blunt, Anonymous's comment about "the idea that the parts of the city devoid of Starbucks are areas to be avoided at all costs" ties directly into that. Many (not all, stay with me) people from the burbs lock their doors and freak out a bit when/if they wind up in an economically run down section of the city. That's the simple version, but there's all sorts of unspoken fears wrapped up in just that simple action (locking the doors). Most economically run down sections of major cities are a) more prone to crime than economically booming parts, and b) populated primarily by minorities. Will anyone dispute that statement? (The reasons WHY that is are vast, debatable, and the subject of Public Enemy's entire career, but that's a topic for another day.) So if a white person from the suburbs gets afraid when they're in a poor section of the city, are they JUST afraid of crime, or is there some racial fear mixed in as well? If high crime areas = poor areas = not many white people, I think it's easy to see how fear of one of these things can get intermingled with the other two.

Movies like this, "Death Wish", and "Falling Down" are all based on the idea of a man who's not going to take any more, one who vows to no longer be afraid in these scary parts of the city. These movie men are always white, and I don't think that's an accident. Matt's right in that the movies chicken out when they make sure that the white hero's rage isn't just vented at minorities -- they always include at least a couple of white antagonists so they can say, "See? We're not racist! He's just fighting back against crime!" But in the real world, I don't think it's just that -- I think the racial issues are part of it as well.

The fact that James Wan is Asian doesn't mean that the movie is exempt from the "white male rage" POV. Mr. Wan didn't write the screenplay or the novel on which it was based. I realize this is a guess, but my guess is James Wan wanted to do a kick ass revenge movie and this fit the bill. I think Matt is correct in calling him out as lazy for not taking the political issues of the story as seriously as they deserve. The movie is being marketed as a straight up revenge/action fun time -- "Come see Kevin Bacon kick ass! The poster looks cool, right? You liked Sin City? Check this out!" But the movie taps into a whole wealth of racial/class issues it doesn't have the stones to deal with in a creative and/or honest way. I agree with Matt that a more interesting movie would be one that had Kevin Bacon's character enacting revenge on a gang of entirely black or latino people. The racial issues would just be laid out and the audience would have to deal with it. I mean, just writing that sounds controversial, so you can imagine what the studio would think of that idea -- which is why the gang is of mixed race. Matt's review (brief as the Times has allowed) is looking beyond just what's on the screen and considering the motivations behind all the decisions.

Bill, you think Anonymous's comments are racist because you could just switch out the words "white man" for "black man", but it's not that simple. For me, it all comes down to "Who's got the power?" (And I don't mean Snap!) Is "Thelma and Louise" a sexist movie? I've heard it argued before, but most people think not. And why not? Because it's a movie about people with less power enacting some revenge on people with more power. Some white people don't buy this, and actually feel that THEY are the ones without power who are victimized, etc. Movies like "Death Sentence" are from this point of view, even if they chicken out about where their rage is directed. Some folks (like Anonymous, it seems) think this point of view is bullshit -- "Why do white suburban males need a revenge picture? Revenge against what? You've got all the power!"

Sorry if any of this comes off as over simplistic. I'm all for further debate and looking into racial fear/power questions. Good times! Happy Labor Day!
Posted by Steve Haskin on 2007-08-31 21:25:00 You think it was the "Entourage" line that pissed me off?? How about these:

"Middle-class white males are, for the most part, full of rage. Why? Maybe because most white males believe it is their inherent birthright to be upper class, as far away from those they percieve to be beneath them, both intellectually and morally, as possible."

"...and I'm tired of being told what the white man in the suburbs is afraid of..." (the irony here is breathtaking)

"...white middle class males who live in the suburbs, who treat the rest of the world like it's their toilet..."

"The moral is: Don't mess with the white man. He'll kill you. He'll feel a little guilty about doing it, but not that much."

The fact of the matter is that intellectually these are the words of a racist. They won't be perceived as such, because the people being condemned are not typically the victims of racism. But he (or she) is saying "This is the way this group of people thinks and behaves: like animals, or sociopaths. They are morally inferior."

And you say there are some fine points here? Are there any in the parts I quoted?

Are the only white people exempt from the abhorrant behavior those who were born in, or have moved to, a city? What about all the minorities who live in the suburbs? Are they traitors? And, again, what about the fact that the director of "Death Sentence" is a minority?

Most revenge movies condemn violence while ackowledging its catharsis. I would say that's a pretty fair subject for a movie ("Unforgiven"), though most of the time it's handled pretty thick-headedly.

As far as these movies being a response to Sept. 11 and Iraq, well, that reminds me of all that theory that there's always a lot of horror movies made during a national crisis. This would explain the nearly complete absence of revenge or horror films while Clinton was in office.

I'll give the multi-racial gangs point, and this:

"I agree that fear of crime isn't a white thing, but the equation of crime/violence and poor people/minorities absolutely is. And movies are absolutely terrified of even acknowledging it..."

But it doesn't really get at the reason I brought all this up in the first place.
Posted by bill on 2007-08-31 19:02:00 The line about trying to get home to watch "Entourage" is a cheap shot, but there a lot of observations in there that are worth exploring in a movie, politically incorrect though they might be. The comment about these types of revenge pictures being interpreted as capturing something in the general Zeitgeist is onto something -- although I agree with a recent NYTimes feature suggesting it's more about 9/11 and Iraq. The problem is, though, "Death Sentence" ultimately says, "Revenge is not a wise pursuit," but then qualifies it with, "..but damn, it feels great, and wasn't it awesome when he blew that guy's leg off?"

I agree that fear of crime isn't a white thing, but the equation of crime/violence and poor people/minorities absolutely is. And movies are absolutely terrified of even acknowledging it, much less building it into the fabric of a revenge picture and letting it explode onscreen. That's why there are so many racially mixed street gangs in movies and on television -- even in the original "Death Wish," which was made during a far less supposedly sensitive era, and even in "Taxi Driver," which originally ended with Travis Bickle shooting his way through a black brothel, but was changed so that Travis' enemies were Italian mobsters, because, by Scorsese's own admission, he was afraid the movie would be perceived as racist.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2007-08-31 18:41:00 Okay, but why isn't the anxiety these movies tap into an anxiety of violent crime? You can fear such a thing and be, well, any race at all, really, and make whatever amount of money you care to.

But if you're going to start agreeing with points from Anonymous's hateful rant, and not call him/her on any of the rest of it, and even act as though this person has just said something reasonable...well, then I think I can see where this is going, and maybe we should just forget it.
Posted by bill on 2007-08-31 18:19:00 Bill: "Also, do middle-class people fantasize about getting revenge on poor people?"

I wouldn't say all of them do, but there's definitely an anxiety that movies like the original Death Wish and this spiritual remake exploit.

To answer your other question, no, the gang is racially mixed -- the leader and his brother are white, but the leader's right hand man is black and there are appear to be Latino members as well. They hang at a bar run by Mexicans, and there's a pivotal scene late in the movie where Bacon's hero goes in there armed and demands the location of the bad guys, and the guy curses him out in Spanish presuming he doesn't know Spanish, and the hero tells him off in Spanish and then beats his face against the bar. Poor blacks, Latinos and whites all sort of blur together in these movies; they're all The Other.

There are some interesting moments in Death Sentence where the movie seems poised to really get into this underlying mutual hatred -- like I mentioned in this capsule review, Goodman and his sons have a few stray lines of dialog pointing out the hero's privileged existence, and there's a striking moment where the gang leader complains to his crew that when a white collar businessman's son gets killed, it makes the front page, but when his kid brother is stabbed to death by an unknown assailant, it doesn't even make the paper the next day. I would have been interested to see a movie that really embraced this two-way resentment/fear and used the bloody feud between the insurance man and the brother of the gang-banger he murdered as a springboard for a deranged black comedy about the haves and have-nots dehumanizing each other and then trying to kill each other. But this is not that movie. Wan almost ends on a poetic note that would have convinced me that he was serious about engaging with the material -- a shot near the end of Bacon's rampage showing the hero and the gang leader, both bloodied, sitting silently together on the same couch -- but the movie rallies at that point and re-establishes that this is Bacon's story and that, as Anonymous above said, he feels bad about killing all those people, but not that bad, and damn if it didn't feel fantastic while he was doing it.

A revenge picture that reversed the terms, or that was set entirely among poor people or middle class people, would be an interesting change of pace (especially since the ones we get now don't have the guts to really be about what they're about, much less challenge any viewer from any social class). The 'hood pictures of the '90s dealt with the eye-for-an-eye philosophy much more honestly -- particularly Menace II Society, which pushed the cycle-of-violence genre into the realm of film noir and black comedy. The recent Descent was a movie along the lines of what Anonymous suggests. It was part melodrama, part polemic, but it had the guts to go all the way with its premise, to the point of alienating viewers (most critics hated it).
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2007-08-31 18:06:00 Wow. If you replaced every use of "white man", "middle class" or "suburbs" with "black man", "poor" and "ghetto", you would correctly be labelled a racist. But you don't really need to replace anything in your post...you're a bigot.

And there have been a LOT of revenge movies of the type you claim there are none of. John Singleton has made at least two all by himself.

And hey! Isn't the director of this movie, James Wan, Asian? It's a little strange for him to be filled with so much white rage, isn't it?
Posted by bill on 2007-08-31 18:01:00 Middle-class white males are, for the most part, full of rage. Why? Maybe because most white males believe it is their inherent birthright to be upper class, as far away from those they percieve to be beneath them, both intellectually and morally, as possible. Crime is for the minorities, right? It would be nice if just once there was a revenge movie about someone from a poverty stricken area taking vengence on a hedge fund manager who drives his Range Rover seventy miles and hour through lower income resedential neighborhoods (his regular shortcut; gotta get home as qucikly as he can so he doesn't miss an episode of Entourage)and kills a little girl trying to cross the street. That's more likely a scenario than some junior hockey player being killed with a machete (!) at an AM/PM. All these movies do is reinforce the idea that the parts of the city devoid of Starbucks are areas to be avoided at all costs. It's a typical white middle class fear, and I'm tired of being told what the white man in the suburbs is afraid of, because to be honest with you, the people I'm most afraid of are the white middle class males who live in the suburbs, who treat the rest of the world like it's their toilet, which is where movies like this belong, although I'm sure there are plenty of "critics" who will spend their valuable time trying to convince the rest of us why movies like Death Sentence capture something in the Zeitgeist, when in fact, they speak for only a small minority, the white middle class males, which, in the end, is what these movies are really about, a reification of dominance. The moral is: Don't mess with the white man. He'll kill you. He'll feel a little guilty about doing it, but not that much.
Posted by Anonymous on 2007-08-31 16:27:00 Well, fair enough, possibly, as I haven't seen the movie. And okay, you do say in your original review that token references are made to the bad guys' financial status. But are the people on whom Mr. Bacon is exacting his furious revenge minorities? If not, why the "white male" reference?

Also, do middle-class people fantasize about getting revenge on poor people?
Posted by bill on 2007-08-31 15:42:00 I'd argue that it does. The movie is as much a middle-class white man's fantasy of kicking minority/poor ass as the original "Death Wish," but it tries to cover its tracks with four or five throwaway references to the goons' relative poverty. But the director doesn't back up that presumed inquisitiveness with technique. The bad guys' lives are bathed in blood red light, signifying its irredeemable hellishness, while the hero and his family are favored with even lighting and scored with what sounds like the "Dateline NBC" women's choir. That's what I'm getting at.

I like movies to admit what they are and embrace it with gusto rather than pretending to be something they're not, that's all.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2007-08-31 15:29:00 I hated "Saw", and this movie could very well be bad. But I read your whole review, and even though you seem to be using the phrase "middle-class white male" as a signifier that this movie is bad, I haven't been able to figure out why.

Sorry if this is out of the blue, but I'm getting tired of "middle-class" and "white male", as well as "suburbs" or "suburban", being used as some sort pejorative shorthand. It's lazy, and in this context, doesn't actually seem to mean anything.
Posted by bill on 2007-08-31 14:52:00

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