Death Wish
Among the movies I think every fan of action, adventure, and thrillers should watch is the classic Charles Bronson picture Death Wish. There are a bunch of sequels, which devolve into mediocrity and almost cartoon-quality violence (and unevenly so — some are fairly brutal, as in Death Wish V: The Face of Death, which involves a victim being disfigured).
Yes, the “street thugs,” especially in the sequel(s), are fairly ridiculous (as if the writers had no idea what young thuggery was all about and just made it up). However, with all that said, the original Death Wish is a very good movie, and its sequels are a guilty pleasure.
Bronson plays Paul Kersey, an architect whose loved ones are brutalized by thugs. The movie was made in 1974, when the issue of rampant street crime, and the justice system’s inability or unwillingness to deal with it, weighed heavily on the national consciousness. When Bronson doesn’t get the justice he wants, he goes out and makes some, becoming a vigilante (who then carves a swath of violence through the four sequels that come after).
Noteworthy about the first film, however, is the development of the Kersey character. Paul’s not comfortable with violence when he starts. He’s no cold-blooded killer, when he begins; he’s actually very upset the first time he takes a life.
My favorite scene, however, involves no killing at all. Kersey buys 40 dollars in quarters, puts them in a sock, and starts bashing up his living room. You can almost see it in the actor’s face — he’s discovered the concept of violence as a problem solver, and he’s discovered that with the proper tools and levers, he can apply this concept to his own situation. When the sock breaks, it’s almost comical.
If you haven’t seen Death Wish, I urge you to do so. I enjoy a lot of those 1970s action movies, like the early Dirty Harry movies, because they so vividly portray society’s willingness to embrace any amount of violence and the violation of civil rights if that violence and those violations will only stop the barbarians at the gates. In one of the Dirty Harry movies — I forget which one — the wife of a gravely wounded cop says to Harry, “It’s a war, isn’t it? I don’t think I understood that until now.”
Death Wish also features a very young Jeff Goldblum as a rapist. If I remember correctly, we are subjected to his naked posterior during the rape scene. You can’t say I did not warn you. Despite the presence of Golblum’s ass, watch this movie.