In "Death Sentence," Kevin Bacon may not be the baddest dad who ever cocked a shotgun to defend his family, but he's the most insanely resolute -- and the least understandable.

As Nick, he's a corporate drone by day and, according to an opening sequence of family home videos, a devoted husband and father. But when a brutal act of violence leaves the family reeling in grief, Nick almost instantly becomes an instrument of biblical vengeance. Why? A few token reasons are offered: The perpetrator caused this tragedy as an initiation into a gang, and the court system offers only mild punishment for the crime. But the movie, based on a novel by Brian Garfield -- who also wrote the 1974 vigilante novel "Death Wish" -- never lets us see the roots of Nick's transformation.

Actually, a father defending the family with old-fashioned vim and vigor would make a refreshingly new conceit these days, in light of the paternal goofballs we see so often in TV commercials -- remember the math-challenged father in the T-Mobile ads? They're portrayed as hapless, well intentioned and adorably incompetent. And then there's the kind of saintly paragon Will Smith played in "The Pursuit of Happyness," with little room in his character for anything but beatific heroism. (Of course, we'll always have Homer Simpson, that serenely boorish poppa, to show us the satirical limits of Father Knows Worst.)

But "Death Sentence," directed by "Saw" co-creator James Wan, swings the pendulum too far. One day Nick is a mild-mannered nerd who spends his days making (and loving) risk assessments for his company; the next, he's Travis Bickle from 1976's "Taxi Driver," loading and reloading all manner of weaponry and even checking out his tough stance in the mirror. And we spend the rest of the movie shaking our heads as he tumbles deeper into a spiral of self-destruction.

-- Desson Thomson (Aug. 31, 2007)

Contains violence and profanity.