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Death Wish

"Stick 'em in concentration camps. That's what I say."
Starring: Charles Bronson, Jeff Goldblum, Stuart Margolin
Rating: 8/10
Directed By: Michael Winner
Runtime: 93 minutes

I was sitting around with pals the other day discussing the action genre, specifically in anticipation of Rambo IV, which we're hugely excited for. This caused me to ponder how different First Blood seems from subsequent sequels. Dirty Harry as well. Which led me to Death Wish. All three of these films are gritty, stark and solid films about loneliness, frustration, loss and trying to do the right thing in an increasingly hostile world. The sequels were pimped-out versions of the same with less emphasis on "movie" and more emphasis on violence and explosions; not at all bad but entirely different animals than the launch film of each series.

Charles Bronson, a Hollywood veteran of such films as The House of Wax (1953), The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967) {destined to be ruined in 2010) and The White Buffalo (1977), stars in another film Hollywood will ruin for us in 2009 in a story reminiscent of Don Pendleton's Executioner series of books and Marvel Comics' Punisher. Bronson, a New York City architect who is a "bleeding heart liberal" and a likable guy tragically finds his wife and daughter savagely beaten and sexually assaulted by a gang of thugs led by Jeff Goldblum (!) wearing a hat like Jughead(!). His daughter cannot recover from the shock and becomes an institutionalized vegetable and his wife passes away. Bronson, of course, must distribute vengeance.

Just like a Jackie Chan film, Bronson builds up to a lethal instrument of justice. He sees some teens break into a car and creates a sap out of $20 in quarters . He then goes out and uses himself as bate to con a mugger into being his test subject. He kinda likes his new empowerment and keeps him busy so he's not buried in grief, an emotion that drives Bronson's character throughout the film. He attends a wild west show and learns some basic fight techniques. Stuart Margolin (Angel from Rockford Files) plays a Tucson, Arizona developer who hires Bronson to design a house. While in Arizona, Margolin takes Bronson to a gun club ("muggers out here plain get their asses blown off"), teaches him some skills and sends him home with a gun as a present. Just what Bronson needs. In a strange parallel to Last Man on Earth, Bronson, much like Vincent Price delaying at his wife's grave, almost goes looking for trouble as an excuse to put his violent new skills to work. He begins to take a lot of walks at night, becoming a Batman-style avenger, spotting villainy and dispensing Judge Dredd-level punishment before melting back into the darkness.

The complication, of course, is when the papers get wind of a vigilante who is so successful that the crime rate has dropped with noticeable results. The constabulary is embarrassed and want Bronson finished so a game of detection begins. Bronson defends himself or another innocent, the cops try and guess who he is. One cop is smart enough to figure it out and by the end of the film Bronson is in Chicago, furthering the sense of loss - first his wife, then his daughter's sanity, now his hometown - and strangely, Jeff Goldblum and his posse escape justice.

Death Wish is a highly underrated film which explores a frustrated man's attempts to cope with loss and receive a small measure of satisfaction from a world that has turned him into a modern-day Job. Years before Falling Down gave us a portrait of a man pushed to his limits, Death Wish explored this ground with the same level of dramatic impact and poignancy (due in part to Herbie Hancock's evocative score) and delivered a solid drama which would be later pimped-out in the sequel process. The DVD package rates a solid 2, delivering only the trailer and a widescreen transfer, though rumors abound of a slightly upgraded edition. Still a solid film that deserves a re-watching if only to remind yourself that all action movies aren't Bad Boys.