Reviews

When Michael Winner asked the late Charles Bronson if he'd like to star in his new movie 'Death Wish', about a mild mannered chap who goes on a rampage shooting scumbags when his family is attacked, Bronson replied "Id like to do that". "The movie?" Winner enquired, "No", responded Bronson, "Shoot some scumbags". When it was released in 1974, Death Wish stirred up enormous controversy. With its violent rape scene and apparent condoning of Paul Kersey's vigilante activities, Vincent Canby of the New York Times called it "one of the sickest movies ever made", claiming that it "raises complex questions in order to offer bigoted, frivolous, oversimplified answers".

The films message in enunciated best by Kersey in conversation with his wet blanket of a son in law; "What do you call people who, when they're faced with a condition of fear, run away?". His son sheepishly asks "Civilised?". In the west, society works on the understanding that when members of the public are done wrong, the State, which holds the monopoly on legitimate violence, takes peoples rights of revenge and retribution on itself. With this comes the caveat that the State is duty bound to exercise this right of revenge and retribution. But, as this film poses, what are we supposed to do when the authorities rescind this right, and by definition the rights of victims and the public, in the face of left wing/liberal notions of fairness for crooks? When the police don't protect us, who does?

For those who think this film silly, just look at the case of British farmer Tony Martin. Repeatedly burgled and repeatedly told by the police that they were powerless to act, Martin shot one burglar dead and wounded another when his home was broken into again. Unlike the burglars, Martin was arrested and sent to jail. The burglar who escaped was subsequently given legal aid to sue Martin. In Death Wish the police spend considerably more time trying to apprehend Kersey than the scum he is after. This is provocative political film making of the highest calibre, not far behind Pontecorvo's 'Battle of Algiers' and Costa Gavras' 'Z'. Some criticise the film for the ease with which Bronson finds muggers. As the Canadian film critic Mark Steyn wrote, "To be sure, he sort of goes looking for trouble. But in 1970's New York you didn't have to look far: just go to the park, ride the subway, take an evening stroll". This great movie loses one star only because it is not quite as good as the similarly themed 'Dirty Harry'.

There are a couple of problems with this movie. Charles Bronson is too macho an actor for the role of "bleeding heart liberal" turned vigilante Paul Kersey. He looks like a killer from frame one, and as a result his transformation is a little hard to swallow. A more normal looking actor might have been more believable, as Dustin Hoffmann demonstrates in 'Straw Dogs'. It also suffers in comparison to the book. The back story about a gun fighting father, introduced in the movie, is plain daft, and the police investigation in the film, which tracks Kersey down in pretty short order, feels tacked on and ill thought out. The ending of the book is better also. Called Paul Benjamin in the book, the Bronson character is caught red handed by a police officer. The officer removes his hat, turns his back and allows the Vigilante to escape. Oochoa gets nowhere near him in the book.

Ask yourself the question posed on the back of the paperback version of the book; "What do you do when your life lies in ruins and fear clutches at your heart? Do you shun the city and flee from its violence? Or do you do what Paul did - get a gun, learn to use it and start fighting back?"

Like the Rambo films, this drivel is a prime example of why NOT to make a sequel to perfectly good original. Indeed, as Margaret Hinxman wrote in the Daily Mail, Death Wish 2 is "The sort of sequel that makes you realise that the original wasn't half so bad as you thought".

In this one the plot is identical, the twist is that it's set in a different city. A bunch of crooks attack his family again. The difference is that whereas in the original the rape scene was a not too graphic short sharp shock, in this film it is leeringly drawn out. Is this to show how vile crime and criminals are? Perhaps. Does it feel shoehorned in for pervs? Certainly.

After this Kersey goes on the rampage again, and this is where the film gets really silly. Part of the strength of the original Death Wish film is that Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) never actually tracks down the crooks who attack his family. Whilst condoning vigilantism, it still feels a little hollow that those guys got away.

Here, Kersey is trawling Los Angeles looking for targets. Now I haven't been to L.A., but I imagine it's pretty big. You know, you're not too likely to keep bumping into the same people at random. Well, you're not Charles Bronson. While out one night, Kersey stumbles across the same hoodlums who attacked him earlier in the film! Fancy that. As if this stroke of luck was not enough, later on he's strolling around when he hears a scream. He goes to investigate and, in the peculiar haze of sexual violence in which this film operates (there is one gang rape, one rape and another attempted rape), he comes across a rape. But, get this, the rapists are some of the gang who attacked him earlier! Now how's that for luck! It gets one mark for two reasons. First, the hilarious bit when Laurence 'Othello' Fishburne tries to shelter from machine gun fire behind his ghetto blaster (it doesn't work), and second, I cant give it less.

Congratulations. This fetid corpse of a movie managed to replace Smokey and the Bandit 3 as my 'Gold Standard' of eye slicingly grim movie making.

Its cheese meltingly smug yet testicle chillingly amateurish at the same time. Its supposed to be a movie from a Hollywood 'Insider' but the stars are washed up old lags Eric Idle and Ryan O'Neal. Its also so boring it could, in some cases, cause death. The director had his name removed from the credits of this film. He may also want to remove his name from any public records so as to avoid detection by people who paid to see this pile of dead monkeys. This film blows more than a tornado in a trailer park.

In many of these reviews one of the criticisms of the movie is its negative depiction of Arab terrorists.

Its worth remembering that this film was released in 1986. The torture and murder of the American sailor depicted in this film actually did happen when TWA727 was hi-jacked in June 1985. In October 1985 "heroic Arab freedom fighters" seized the cruise ship Achille Lauro and killed a passenger, 69 year old wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer, because he was Jewish. In December 1985, Arab terrorists indiscriminately opened fire on travellers at Rome and Vienna airports killing 20 people, including an 11 year old girl.

No matter how bad this film may set out to make Arab terrorists look, they always make themselves look 10 times worse.

First off I have to say that this film is awful. Seriously, its so bad that when I put the video next to Citizen Kane that movie started to suck as well.

So why have I given it 10 stars? Because you'll never see a movie as deranged as this. Its the cinematic equivalent of a tramp, high on amphetamines, trying to beat a fairground ride to death with a birthday cake.

Its a Mad Max rip off with dreadful actors, no real plot and no budget. Thrown into the mix a bizarre underground cameo from the Umpa Lumpas from Willy Wonka, the craziest sex scene ever which looks like it was taken from a daytime soap and full on battle sequence at the end and you have pure straight to video gold.

Watch it with your critical faculties intact and you'll hate it. Watch it with some spicy food, Chivas Regal and a bag of Moroccan black and you're in for a hell of a ride.