Summary:
After his wife and daughter are brutally assaulted, a bleeding-heart liberal becomes a gun-totting vigilante.
My Thoughts:
I had heard about this film only in passing, and honestly, I probably never would have gone out of my way to watch it were it not for Red Letter Media referencing it repeatedly throughout their reviews. But when I came across it on Amazon Prime, and there was really nothing better to watch, I decided to give it a shot knowing only a few things about the film. I knew that our protagonist, play by Charles Bronson (“The Great Escape”), would eventually turn vigilante; I knew that, because of the violence this film contained, it had been controversial at the time of its release; and I also knew it was popular enough to spawn four sequels and a remake starring Bruce Willis. It’s not like the amount of sequels a film gets is an indicator of how good it is, but regardless, I was interested to see for myself how the original was. Does this film join the ranks of 70s action greats like “Dirty Harry” and “The French Connection”, or is it a bit dated like the original “Mad Max (1979)” (I love the Mad Max series, but show me one person that says the 1979 film is the most exciting in the franchise and I’ll show you a liar)?
“This is gun country.”
Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is a liberal architect living in New York City. After his wife Joanna (Hope Lange, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) and daughter Carol (Kathleen Tolan) are brutally assaulted by a gang of thugs, one of whom is played by Jeff Goldblum (“The Fly”), Paul grows desperate for a solution as to what to do to combat the crime wave in the city and turns to vigilantism. Shortly after Paul begins murdering on petty criminals in cold blood, a police detective named Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia, “Little Shop of Horrors”) begins following clues that might lead him right to Paul.
The story is the most compelling part of this movie, and the execution of the set up is probably why this film was so successful. In the beginning our hero is a mild mannered man- a ‘bleeding heart liberal’ as one of his coworkers so eloquently puts it- so it would take a shocking incident to turn him into a cold blooded killer, and this movie provides that shocking incident. The scene where Paul’s wife and child are attacked is absolutely brutal, and beyond that it’s perverse. That kind of scene is incredibly memorable, and it also does something to the viewer; it makes them angry- it makes them thirst for blood. This movie follows the same kind of formula as thriller/horror films like “Bedevilled (2010)” or “Revenge (2017)”- something horrible happens to our hero at the beginning so that we as the viewer think it’s justified that they inflict horrible violence to others later. That formula can be effective when the timeline for events is short- it makes sense if our heroes snap and attack in self defense- it almost begs the viewer to put themselves in the heroes shoes. But this film does a few things that shatter my want to root for Paul Kersey’s character.
First of all, there is an incredibly strong pro-gun message in this film; it’s so strong that, at first, I thought this movie was going to be a satire. There’s a scene where a man in Tucson, Arizona monologues about how safe they are because everyone has a gun, and if there were to be any muggers they’d just get blown away. Again, the way the scene was so ham-fisted that at first I thought it was satire, but the following scenes go on to essentially preach what the gun advocate was saying. Bronson goes on to use his divine judgment powers granted to him by his .32 to exterminate dozens of people. When a film stretches out the timeline violence, like this one does, the hero’s rampage might not seem like it’s driven by a want for revenge, but a want for blood. Bronson, in this film, becomes worse than many of the people he is fighting off. He goes out at night prowling the streets for muggers and then shoots them to sate his bloodlust. This isn’t the story of a man devastated by what happened to his wife and daughter and now looking for vengeance, it’s the story of a man who kills someone for the first time and discovers he really likes doing it, so he keeps on doing it and the whole city praises him.
I do think this movie does do some things right. By introducing the police officer, we get a bit of perspective on how the rest of the city is reacting to Paul’s rampage, and that was kind of interesting. Plus, the officer allows us to see some interesting politics behind the scenes- like, for example, the mayor doesn’t want to arrest Paul because he doesn’t need a martyr, or that crime is down immensely due to Paul’s presence. Those kinds of extra details give this movie and this world a little bit more depth. I loved the fact that they make allusions to the idea that Paul thinks of himself as a cowboy, and what he’s doing, akin to what good natured gunslingers of the wild west would do to protect the innocent from evildoers. I also thought the way this film ends was interesting, and of course, it paved the way for many sequels.
I think the most disappointing things in this film are the action scenes. Most of the sequences are less than two or three minutes long, and consist of nothing more than Bronson shooting his gun a few times. By today’s standards, this film’s action would be considered pretty boring, and that was something I didn’t expect from a movie that has attained such a big cult status.
Verdict:
This movie is all right. Bronson himself wasn’t bad in the film, and the set up for his rampage was incredibly well done, though it was really rough to watch. For an action movie, it’s pretty slow, though I’m sure in the 70s it was a nail-biter. There are some redeemable moments that bump what would’ve been a 2.5 Star rating to a 3 Star, but overall the film is the definition of average.
END NOTE: I personally have not seen Eli Roth’s remake “Death Wish”, but TMM reviewer Karl Nagurski has. If you’d like to hear his thoughts on that film, follow the link!
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