Death Wish series

  • Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

    Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) Paul Kelso is back once more… to kill and kill again. While the opening (a dream sequence in which Kelso easily guns down a few stereotypical rapists only to see himself killed) does seem promising in exploring the moral consequences of being a vigilante, the rest of Death Wish 4: The Crackdown soon dispenses with the fiction of depth, and goes gunning hard. This time, the excuse is drugs. Tons of drugs, flowing around Los Angeles and killing (because you need a victim) the daughter of Kelso’s current paramour. It doesn’t take much more than that to send Kelso shooting through the Los Angeles underworld once more, mowing down mooks on the trail of the big mob boss. Architect by day and bloodthirsty murderer by night, Kelso has to face corrupt cops and deliver lame quips along the way to fulfill the requirement of this Cannon production. I obviously wasn’t intending to enjoy the film when I sat down to watch it – I was doing more or less out of completionism obsession, having seen four of the five instalments and having number 4 right there on the DVR. I did have a moderate amount of fun questioning the perspective of Kelsey being a complete psychopath within a movie trying to excuse his actions, but that’s not a whole lot. Much of Death Wish 4’s execution is bland and unremarkable, erring on the side of a low budget and simply moving pieces until it’s time for the next shootout. Charles Bronson looks old and tired here, clearly getting a paycheque but not much artistic fulfillment from going through the same motions with even less justification. The ending is mean-spirited enough to justify having the protagonist put a rocket through the villain, providing at least one highlight for the film. In retrospect, Death Wish 4 does make the craziness of the third instalment feel even more enjoyable: this fourth film has nothing more than a few preachy clichés to say about the scourge of drugs as window-dressing to some righteous serial killing for the protagonist.

  • Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

    Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Some people have addiction problems, but by this point in the Death Wish series, protagonist Paul Keslo’s serial killing problem has just become a grim parody of the first few movies—which, considering the blatantly cartoonish nature of the third film, is saying something. This time, Keslo’s close relatives are being brutalized and killed by rich people, which puts a different but not really any more acceptable spin on things. Charles Bronson (as Keslo) is grandpa killer by then, looking old and bored in his final theatrical starring role, as he once again murders for revenge in creative ways more reminiscent of slasher movies than earnest revenge. Although the film nods slightly in the direction of the character’s previous crime sprees, there isn’t much done with the psychology of someone who always sees killing as a solution to revenge. (Although that suggests a different parodic direction for the series—at 64, one year away from retirement, office avenger Paul Keslo kills co-workers who didn’t return his stapler, don’t wash their hands in the washroom and took away his lunch in the break room!) More amusing than dramatic, but far more boring than amusing, Death Wish V pushes the series’ five instalments even further past their due date.

  • Death Wish 3 (1985)

    Death Wish 3 (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) I’ve been plumbing the depths of 1980s Hollywood lately, and movies seldom get as crazy as Death Wish III. If the original 1974 film was arguably a statement on early-1970s urban crime and the second 1982 film became an outright exploitation picture, this third instalment goes full-on bonkers in an attempt to give more to the target audience. Here we have the series protagonist (once again played by Charles Bronson, here in his mid-sixties) coming back to New York to visit an old army buddy. Except that the cops know what he’s done and are aware of the bad neighbourhood where he’s going and they have a deal for him: kill as many criminals as you want, and let us claim the credit. With a setup like that, it’s no surprise to find out that the protagonist’s army buddy is one of the last decent people in a crime-ridden neighbourhood where even the police fear to tread. Put together as if someone had no experience of American cities other than the worst crime dramas of the 1980s, this neighbourhood hosts ludicrous gangs with stylish looks that pretty much do whatever they want to anyone. Bronson steps in with a crime-fighting attitude and an unexplained supply of heavy weaponry. It all escalates ludicrously to out-and-out urban warfare by the end of the film, complete with anti-tank rockets being used to dispatch opponents. We’re far, far away from the 1970s angst of revenge here … and that may be part of the film’s peculiar charm. The Death Wish series has never been about serious exploration of issues, and while Death Wish 3 is fantastical in the way it treats New York City as a playground for explosive mayhem … at least it’s a bit less hypocritical about its intention. It’s really not a good movie, but at least it’s interesting in its craziness. In keeping with the series’ tradition of having a famous actor in an early role, here we have the always-stunning Marina Sirtis playing a victim of the hooligans. I’m not even covering half the nonsense of the film: Suffice to say that Death Wish 3 inches toward the have-to-be-seen-to-be-believed category of the worst of 1980s Hollywood. Alas, there’s a lot of competition in that field, but still: at least it’s an improvement over Death Wish 2.

  • Death Wish 2 (1982)

    Death Wish 2 (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2019) The original 1974 Death Wish was a piece of exploitation filmmaking relying on the revenge fantasies of its audiences, but it could at least point to the growing urban crime rates in mid-seventies American cities as justification. It clearly expressed something about its times and refrained from a number of excesses—There was a feeling, pervasive throughout many of the similar gritty urban thriller of the 1970s, that while satisfying on a primal level, this kind of revenge was not a good thing, either for the protagonist or for everyone around him. Sequel Death Wish 2 from a slightly different time, as the bleak realism of the 1970s was being transformed into the violent escapism of the 1980s. Relocating to bright sunny California, this sequel follows the mild-mannered protagonist (played by Charles Bronson, still one of the most confounding choices for an action hero) as his daughter (and maid; let’s not forget about the maid) are assaulted, raped or killed by hippie hoodlums. In keeping with series tradition (with Jeff Goldblum being in the first film in a minor role as a hoodlum), here we have Lawrence Fishburne in a small role as a hoodlum who assaults, rapes, kills, etc., all of the protagonist’s female acquaintances. Cue the bloody revenge, this time with far less soul-searching given that the protagonist has done this before and because audiences expect the kills rather than the personal anguish. Police are once again useless in the neon demimonde of L.A. at night, although there’s a nod to the events of the first film as the police suspect but cannot prove that our death-thirsty protagonist is behind the escalating mayhem. There may be something interesting in how the film must create a bleak universe of rampant urban crime in order to justify its ludicrous plot (read comments made by the film’s producer and screenwriter for some distasteful justifications) but the problem is that since 1982 we’ve seen this manoeuvre make its way from movies to national politics with terrifying results. The manoeuvre is transparent and as a result Death Wish 2 never earns the sympathy for the victims that would propel it forward. Instead, it’s laid bare for exactly what it is: an exploitative cash grab playing serious issues for not much more than cynical thrills.

  • Death Wish (1974)

    Death Wish (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2018) The mid-seventies really weren’t a cheerful time for popular entertainment in general, or New York City in particular—Hollywood was still churning out reactions to being unshackled from the Hays Code, whereas NYC was experiencing unprecedented levels of crime. People wanted quick and simple solutions, and so a vigilante character stepped in, incarnated by Charles Bronson. Death Wish itself has spawned so many imitators—the basic story is visceral and easy enough to do on a low budget—that it does feel dull by today’s standard: The story moves along at a plodding pace, and the film feels long even at 94 minutes. Bronson is too old (and far too menacing) to play the part, but who cares—it’s the idea that counts, or more specifically the fantasy of taking complete revenge upon irremediable criminals. It would be easy enough to regret the normalization of revenge fantasies in pop culture (so much so that the 2018 remake of Death Wish passed along almost unnoticed in theatres) but that’s shouting at a horse long after it has left the barn. What matters most is the film’s keystone place in the landscape of mid-seventies cinema, and how it acts as the apogee of a dark-gritty-violent trend that would create an appetite for escapist fare along the lines of Star Wars. In many ways, there’s no need to see the original Death Wish—it’s been redone so often since then that it’s almost superfluous.