Death Warrant

Death Warrant is a 1990 American prison action thriller film directed by Deran Sarafian, produced by Mark di Salle, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The film was written by David S. Goyer while a student at USC, and was Goyer's first screenplay to be sold and produced commercially. In the film, police detective Louis Burke is going into a prison facility in California as an undercover cop in order to find out who was behind a mysterious series of murders, and finds himself locked up with his nemesis: Christian Naylor, a psychotic serial killer who calls himself "The Sandman," who sets out to exact revenge upon him after getting into prison. Death Warrant was released on September 14, 1990. Upon its release, the film grossed $46 million against a production budget of only $6 million. The film received general mixed critical reaction from critics who found the direction, its storyline, villain, and the plot poor, but highly praised the acting as well as the action scenes and the thrilling atmosphere. Plot Detective Louis Burke of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from Quebec confronts the maniac that killed his partner: a psychopathic serial killer who calls himself "The Sandman". Burke searches an abandoned house in Los Angeles, where he comes across a series of bodies hanging from the ceiling, and is then attacked by the Sandman. Burke shoots the Sandman several times in the chest, apparently killing him. Sixteen months later, Burke joins a task force assembled by the governor to investigate a series of murders in the Harrison State Prison in California. While Burke poses as an inmate, attorney Amanda Beckett acts as his wife. Burke goes undercover and is interned in the state penitentiary, where he befriends his cellmate Konefke and clerk Hawkins. Despite Burke saving Hawkins from a confrontation with a gang, neither he nor Konefke will talk about the recent murders. Burke is able to track down Barrett, the cellmate of the most recent victim, who works at the infirmary, but he also refuses to talk. When Burke threatens him, Barrett reveals that he doesn't know what's going on, but that the guards are involved and that there is an "outside man." He sends Burke to talk to Priest, who gets him a key to the records room.