Death Wish

Summary

“A gun is a tool.”

I recently watched the Blue Underground UHD release of the film Vigilante. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but start thinking of the grandfather of all urban justice pictures: Death Wish. Released in 1974, Death Wish was a star vehicle for the inimitable Charles Bronson. That film yielded four sequels over the span of twenty years. While the sequels fell into the realm of elevated revenge fantasy, the original film is more restrained and focused. A couple years ago Paramount gave the film a sharp looking steelbook presentation that also featured a Digital HD voucher for Vudu or Apple. I purchased the steelbook and happily watched the film the other night.

In New York City, “bleeding heart” liberal architect Paul Kersey lives comfortably with his wife Joanna (Hope Lange.) They have recently celebrated with a trip to the beach together and are obviously still very enamored with one another. One day, when Joanna goes to the grocery store in the city she encounters three outlandish creeps (including Jeff Goldblum in his film debut.) She picks her groceries out and leaves her address for the store to drop them off at her apartment. One of the creeps picks out the address from the bag and they all decide to pay her a visit. Arriving back home, Joanna chats with her daughter Carol (Kathleen Tolan) who is visiting. The three freaks arrive at the apartment. One represents himself as the grocery delivery man. When Carol opens the door, the creeps violently attack the mother and daughter. Carol is sexually assaulted and the mother is beaten viciously and hospitalized. Paul is called away from work by his son-in-law Jack Toby (Steven Keats) to meet him at the hospital. Arriving at the hospital, Paul finds that his daughter is catatonic from the shock. His wife has passed away just moments before his arrival. After the funeral, the architectural firm offers Paul a job in Phoenix to take his mind off of everything. At the same time, Paul’s daughter refuses to see him because Paul’s presence reminds her of the attack that took place in his apartment. Paul accepts the job in Phoenix and meets with developer Aimes Jainchill (Stuart Margolin.) Aimes takes Paul to a gun range where he likes to blow off steam. Paul had served in Korea as a conscious objecter and had not held a gun since a young age. In fact, an incident with his father and a hunting accident had sworn Paul off guns at a young age. After completing the architectural job, Paul flies back to New York. Aimes had given him a parting gift. When Paul opens the gift box, inside is a revolver. As Paul feels the city around him becoming overrun with crime, and the helplessness and injustice, he begins to walk with a sock of quarters to protect himself. After a mugging in which he protects himself with the sock of quarters, Paul begins to carry his gun. He soon finds himself in situations that call for protecting himself which leads to the death of his attackers. Soon he finds the feeling of killing criminals enthralling. As Paul becomes a vigilante the police begin pursuing him in connection to a string of criminal deaths. At the same time, detective Frank Ochoa feels political pressure to pursue the vigilante lightly by the powers above him.

Death Wish is in many ways the classic Charles Bronson action film. Often imitated, it spawned an entire sub genre of “urban justice” films. Director Michael Winner had worked with Bronson previously on the excellent action film The Mechanic and he definitely knew how to get the best out of the mustachioed Bronson. While the role does not demand much in terms of dialogue delivery, which is kept to a minimum, it does demand a steely and convincingly emotional performance from the actor. Bronson is great in the role and it is enjoyable to watch in the film as Paul transitions from conscientious objector to armed killer. The cast surrounding Bronson is full of enjoyable character actors. Vincent Gardenia is perfect in the role of the beleaguered detective Frank Ochoa who is put into a difficult political position while attempting to catch Paul Kersey. Stuart Margolin is fun to watch in the minor role of Aimes. Hope Lange is also well cast in her small but important role.

The film feels like a stereotypical action film in some ways now, but at the time it stood out from the crowd. The crime and violence at that time was reaching the highest levels in American history, and many people were worried that America had lost its way. The armed avenger angle certainly represented a comic book way of looking at the situation, but it doesn’t stop the film from being satisfying. It is enjoyable to see bad men meet their demise, and Death Wish offers a good amount of justice well served in the final half of the film. The assault sequence on the wife and daughter is rough, but it thankfully doesn’t go as far as some of the exploitation films like Last House on the Left. Death Wish is different in many ways from other revenge films in that Paul Kersey does not track down the people that assaulted his wife, but instead kills people with similar bad attributes. It is also worth pointing out that the soundtrack by jazz legend Herbie Hancock (his first for a film) is absolutely fantastic and adds a lot to the picture.

Overall – Death Wish is an enjoyable and tough action film that through its inspired indignation created a new genre of urban justice films that were popular in the Seventies and Eighties. 

Video

The transfer provided by Paramount is the same transfer featured on the prior Warner Bros. release. The cinematography of Death Wish is a pretty gritty affair, and the colors in the film are pretty muted. That is probably to the betterment of the film in general, which attempts to paint the city as a gray filthy nightmare. Even though this transfer is older, it still looks pretty good. A 4K remaster would be welcomed, but fans will not be disappointed with how the film looks on this release.

Audio

Paramount have provided the DTS-HD MA 2.0 track from the prior Warner Bros. release. The track capably reproduces the original sound design of the film. The soundtrack by Herbie Hancock shines and adds a lot to the film. While this track is not the most immersive track imaginable (it is a mono track extended to both sides of the sound field,) it still should please all fans of the film.

Supplements:

• Trailer

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – .5/5

Overall – 4.5/5

Death Wish is one of the best films to feature action film star Charles Bronson. The film feels somewhat stereotypical when viewed today, but that is just because of the amount of films that were directly inspired by it. I like urban justice films and this is certainly one of the best from that genre. Bronson brings the role of Paul Kersey to life convincingly, and Michael Winner directs the film capably. It’s definitely a tough picture and I can understand why aspects of the film may rub a viewer the wrong way in our day and age. The Steelbook edition from Paramount looks really good and features good technical specs along with vouchers for Digital HD copies of the film. The only disappointment in the release is the lack of special features. If you like the genre, this is well worth adding to your collection!