Bronson cleaning the streets

I read the book Bronson's Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films and that inspired me to watch the movies again. The book itself was quite ok, it loses track more than once as it's based on so many different interviews, but yet it manages to dig up enough great info to keep it interesting. Too bad it's quite short as I ended up reading it quite fast and it left me wanting more of it. But it's great for what it is and definitely great read for anyone into the Death Wish movies. Anyway, here's what I thought of the movies.



Death Wish (1974)

The movie which kick-started the vigilante genre watched today seems a bit corny and superficial at parts. But it still has a whole lot to offer and the importance of it can't be denied. Paul Kersey, the vigilante, is definitely Charles Bronson's most iconic character. I bet pretty much everyone has seen at least one of the movies from the series or at least some of the iconic pictures of them. In this first movie his wife is killed and his daughter is raped by punks who invade their home. The daughter gets traumatized and loses the ability to speak. Kersey doesn't jump to a gun straight away to seek revenge, at start it looks like he doesn't want anything to do with the mess. Only the growing violence around the neighborhood and the incompetence of the police drives him to arm himself for defense. As he first time needs to defend himself against a mugger, he gets a whole new sensation in form of an adrenaline rush. He notices that the criminals can be dealt with and so he decides to go and hunt them down. So there is a bit of depth to the story as well and it surely is quite striking even today at some parts. The cast is quite great and the look of the movie is nicely gritty. The city looks menacing and the dark alleyways hold all sorts of low life criminals. Sure it's totally over the top, but this movie is not about subtlety, it's about extremes. Despite it's few corny moments it's still a strong movie, even today and definitely deserves it's spot among the best of it's genre.
89%



Death Wish II (1982)

This time Paul Kersey lives in Los Angeles with his still traumatized daughter and his new girlfriend. One day five thugs break into his house raping and killing his housekeeper. When he gets home they knock him out and kidnap her daughter. The daughter gets also raped and killed, so Kersey is out for blood once again. This movie doesn't seek motives too far and jumps quite fast into the main point, termination of the criminals. This one is a lot more brutal than the first one and also a lot more straight forward without much thought to the dilemmas of the subject. So the entertainment values are more on the action exploitation side and that's not at all bad as this is quite entertaining movie. The acting is quite bad and even unintentionally funny at parts. The dialog is very corny, though there's not that much of it anyways. This movie made the character a bit more like a hero and opened the road for the absolutely crazy third part, but more about that below. In the eyes of an exploitation movie fan this kind of cut out all the nonsense of the idea and focused on the juicy parts. Far behind the first one in content and depth, but still surprisingly enjoyable no brainer action flick.
66%



Death Wish 3 (1985)

Over the top would be a horrible understatement about where the third part took the series. It's absolutely bonkers. This time Kersey doesn't even have to lose a family member, the death of a Korean War buddy is enough to set him on a rampage again. And this time he just doesn't shoot a few muggers with a puny pistol, he has a 60 caliber machine gun, a hand cannon even Dirty Harry would be jealous and a fucking rocket laucher to boost. The story is basicly that this small part of the city is over run by a gang, they terrorize the elderly people living there and the police is helpless. So what does the police do? They of course ask Kersey to help them out. And a total all out war is the name of the game. So the script is ridiculous to say the least, the acting is quite bad most of the time and the movie is tons of fun. The camp values of this one are extremely high. As a serious movie this is total crap, but as an insane campy fun ride this is the best of the series. And since I love a good campy movie, that's how I'm going to rate it. Absolutely brain numbingly brilliant!
92%



Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

So after the completely insane third part, where could the series possibly go? Well the start of the fourth part is quite brilliant, kind of like making the Kersey character a super hero, avenger in the shadows rescuing the damsel in distress. But unfortunately that was just a dream and the reality is not really what you'd hope for. Kersey has given up his vigilantism and is trying to settle down with his girlfriend, but him being Kersey, things don't work out as planned. The daughter of his girlfriend overdoses on crack and dies. A wealthy business mogul whose daughter has also died of drugs hires him to kill the mafia behind the drug traffic. With a bit of moral support he soon accepts the deal and on we go. So this time the small time criminals and muggers are switched to mafia men in suits. That's the biggest problem in this movie, it's not as interesting to see him as a hitman without the revenge theme, sure it was thin on the third already but still, kind of taking the vigilante theme in the wrong direction. And speaking of direction, Michael Winner who directed the first three didn't return and J. Lee Thompson took over. That unfortunately shows as this movie was surprisingly straight forward with only a few nice looking scenes. Not that the previous 3 would have been especially stylish but they had that gritty exploitative feel to them, this one looked like a James Bond movie done cheap with all it's clean action. Sure there's a big bodycount like in the previous one, but this time it's quite unimaginative and the movie is trying to take itself a bit too seriously in the light of the thin script it has. Despite the few good moments, got quite bored watching this.
44%



Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

After a wife, a daughter, two girlfriends, a step daughter and a Korean War buddy being killed, you'd think Paul Kersey wouldn't want any friends and family. Add to that the fact that most of his friends and whoever he comes close to end up getting hurt also, you just wonder why he even bothers to trying to live a normal life. Should just stick to cleaning the streets. Well quess he's after the nookie or something as this time around he's again in a relationship and as soon as he proposes things end up bad for the woman. What a surprise... Again he's after the organized crime but this time even the action is very poor. So this final part has really nothing to give to the series and is quite a pointless sequel. Even Bronson mostly just looks tired and you can see that he's thinking "I'm too old for this shit". And at the age of 72 he sure was. They should have let the series die at the third part or even at the fourth part as that still had it's moments. This one has none.
18%