Death Wish (1974) Review

"What about the old American social custom of self-defense?"
-Paul Kersey



After his wife is murdered and his daughter is raped during a home invasion, mild-mannered architect, Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) decides to take the law into his own hands.  He gets a gun and starts taking out every mugger he can find.  As the police search for him, they realize that the city's crime rate is going down and have to decide how to handle the vigilante situation.


What Works:

I don't have a ton to say about this movie.  I wouldn't call in a good or a bad film.  There isn't much I liked or much I disliked.  It is always fun to see Kersey hunting down crooks.  There aren't as many action sequences as you would expect, but I enjoyed the ones we did get.

The most interesting part of the movie is how the police and politicians react to the vigilante.  I enjoyed that Kersey's actions had a massive impact on the crime rate.  My favorite scene in the movie is when the chief investigator is asked not to arrest Kersey.  It was an interesting direction for the story to take and I wasn't expecting it.


What Sucks:

The characters are woefully underdeveloped.  We never even get a scene of Paul, his wife, and his daughter all together before the attack.  Their dynamic is never established, which would make their fates that much more heartbreaking.

Bronson doesn't even try to act.  I never once felt any emotion from him.  He's just there.  I know that's part of the charm in the later movies, when things get ridiculous, but it definitely holds the original back.

The filmmakers really missed an opportunity with Jeff Goldblum.  This was his first film and I was shocked to see he played the thug that raped Paul's daughter.  I thought the movie was going to be about Paul tracking Goldblum and his friends down.  It would be perfect if Goldblum was the main antagonist.  Nope.  We never see him again.  From both an narrative and an entertainment perspective, this was a massive missed opportunity.


Verdict:

Death Wish is a mediocre revenge film, to put it simply.  The action sequences are fine, if low-key and the police storyline was mildly interesting, but the characters are underdeveloped, Bronson isn't doing anything, and the narrative was lacking a good villain.  

 5/10: Meh  

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