sirbriang2

This is the worst Death Wish movie. If you thought the others were unrealistic or stupid, you were right, but this movie blows them away. Charlie Bronson was not a good actor. He had a bizarre speech cadence that somehow made him seem like a tough guy. This movie was made when he was 73 years old and every year shows. While I like action movies, I don't particularly enjoy seeing senior citizens diving to avoid gunfire or trying to kill people. It just doesn't look good or believable. Granted, some old people kill. They don't kill entire bad guy operations, though. And jeez! he was engaged to a woman 33 years younger than him! I'm sorry, I just can't fathom why the filmmakers thought that the audience would think anything except "wow, he's aging poorly" when viewing this.

I'm not saying that old men cannot be violent in movies. THE LIMEY features Terrence Stamp as an AMAZING vigilante. UNFORGIVEN is a great movie, too, and Eastwood looks like the leather on his face is at least 200 years old. However, both of those movies has the characters' age play a major factor in the film. This movie tries to ignore it.

This movie should have had Charlie as a grandpa who, with an elderly wife, is killed by vengeful mafioso. Then, Charlie's son or grandson could pick up the vigilante torch and kill the bad guys for grandpa. Instead, the director tried to make an action movie with someone who could break his hip at any time.

This movie is unique in the fact that it ties into the fashion industry. Yes, the bad guy is a fashion big-wig. Somehow, this fashion guy managed to head some large scale operation that involves murder and the mob. Okay, sure, whatever. The plot of Death Wish movies (aside from the first one) has never really mattered. All you want is for Charlie to kill the crap out of them. In that way, this movie delivers. It also provides a death via soccer ball. That guy then flails around with his upper body on fire. And then Charlie chuckles. I wonder why Charlie wasn't in more comedies; his sense of humor and timing are dead-on.

All in all, it's pretty sad to see an old man try and act young.

Without a doubt, this is the best Roddy Piper/Sonny Chiba movie EVER. Not many people know this, but these two great action stars made over 200 films together, although this was the only one released stateside.

That's probably not true. At all. It would be funny if it was, though. Roddy Piper, a wrestler that knew his own acting limits and stayed within them (no "suburban commando" for him. just dumb and violent stuff, thank you very much), stars in this film that is kind of about immortal bad guys. I say "kind of" because this movie manages to veer away from the dumb-but-enjoyable premise of fighting the unkillable for almost two hours and needlessly complicate the matter by involving power-hungry white-collar bad guys. Who cares about the mortal baddies when the immortal have to be killed? Certainly not this movie's target audience: drunk college kids and boys under the age of ten.

My problem is this: former American Gladiator Malibu (Derron McBee) is the immortal bad guy. He has all the acting chops one would expect of someone who has been paid to joust with large Q-Tips on TV. Still, he's a ridiculously cartoony bad guy who makes the beginning scenes fun to watch. Then he's gone for about an hour, until the very end. Huh? Who plotted that? Does the audience care about Roddy Piper's sort-of romantic interest that doesn't get naked? No! Do they care about the non-immortal non-combatant bad guys? No!! Do they want to hear Roddy Piper fake a Southern accent? Well, maybe. It's pretty funny bad.

Sonny Chiba is in this movie, too. He's credited as Sonny "J.J." Chiba an his character's name is "J.J." too. Presumably, J.J. is his real nickname and he plays himself in the movie because the movie is based on events from his life. Sonny has a Caucasian daughter in this movie. There is some sort of drama involving her being surprised that he's not her real dad or something. It's hard to pay attention to all of this movie. I'm lucky to be able to recall even that much. This plot just sucks the interest right out of your body.

Oh, remember the wrestler Zeus? He's in this movie, too. He makes friends with Roddy Piper after he watches Rodddy break a guy's nose for pestering a woman. That isn't integral to the plot, mind you. It is, however, exactly the sort of thing that I imagine Zeus likes in his acquaintances.

If you are familiar at all with the Death Wish series of movies, it might strike you as odd that the original was actually a film, as opposed to its sequels, which technically qualify as guano. This film has a score by Herbie Hancock, is based on a novel, and features early small roles for Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Guest. Charlie Bronson is actually conflicted in this movie. Honest. It's a drama with a slow build. It's not a great movie, but it's not bad by any means. It's just not anything like it's sequels (well, Charlie kills bad guys in both, but this isn't an action movie). Overall, I'd say that Death Wish is an okay, if dated film that attempts to comment on vigilantism in our culture. It is not a hero-gets-mad-and-kills-stadiums-full-of-bad-guys movie Weird, huh?

What's not weird is Jeff Goldblum's role. As you may have suspected, Jeff is actually responsible for all the Death Wish sequels. Jeff, with long hair and a Jughead-style crown hat, leads a gang that robs, beats, and (probably) rapes Charles Bronson's wife and daughter. I don't understand why Charlie never followed Jeff to another movie set and just took care of his grudge once and for all. Wouldn't it have been great if Charlie showed up during the Big Chill and shot the only character that couln't get laid? Of course it would have.