I like revenge flicks; especially the late ‘70s ones, but I had never seen Death Wish (1974). This works for a variety of subgenres for me: I’m in love with several rip-offs but I haven’t seen the originals. But I’m on a mission to right this wrong.
The Death Wish franchise is featuring actor
Charles Bronson in the role of Paul Kersey who is a vigilante that goes after
muggers. I’m a big fan of C’era Una Volta
Il West (1968), The Great Escape (1963),
Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), Telefon (1977) and St. Ives (1976) and so the idea of watching Charles Bronson
shooting bad guys in five more films sounded brilliant! I hope you enjoy
reading as much as I did watching and writing.
Death
Wish
(1974)
Paul Kersey [Charles Bronson;
because Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood and Frank Sinatra turned down the part] lives in New
York where numerous murders take place. He is a liberal who’s against leaving the
city because that’s only for people who can afford it (hence undemocratic).
Some of his friends are radical and wish that there’ll be concentration camps
for the criminals and hate it that the tax payers can’t afford more police on
the streets.
When Paul’s at work, three punks break into his apartment, and when they
find out that his wife and his daughter - who are present - don’t have any
money they brutalize them and the poor girls end in the hospital. Paul and his
son-in-law go to the hospital. Paul’s wife dies. His daughter survives but in
order to get through the shock she’ll have to stay away from her father, as the
psychiatrist suggest, and anything else that would remind her of the traumatic
incident.