cult film freak: CHARLES BRONSON 'THE STONE KILLER' PAUL KOSLO & JACK COLVIN

Charles Bronson in Michael Winner's THE STONE KILLER Year: 1973

Michael Winner's 1970's exploitation crime trilogy starring Charles Bronson made the tough guy actor as famous as Sergio Leone's Man With No Name trilogy put Clint Eastwood successfully on the map... And the Bronson flicks are modern asphalt Westerns about a hit man; a vigilante...

And between THE MECHANIC and DEATH WISH is his edgiest performance in the shoot-first cop flick the likes of... back to the Eastwood similarity... DIRTY HARRY: Only Bronson's Lou Torry is more realistic since THE STONE KILLER is a visually-stylistic nostalgic Neo Noir as our man dons a gumshoe trench coat; investigates a list of repeatedly-spoken culprit last names; and uses sparse dialogue with hardly any conversation lasting longer than it takes to move the story from one scene to the next, and there are plenty...

Charles Bronson kicks front in The Stone Killer

Which is good, always having something to center on, and bad since it gets a bit much after a while, and somewhat confusing as Bronson goes from New York to Los Angeles back to New York during the first ten-minutes: after he guns down a 17-year old Puerto Rican kid who, as Torrey says, yearned to be a "comic book hero," and then escorts a former mobster turned feeble junky, which doesn't work out in either one's favor...

Since every location looks urban and gritty, it takes concentration and several viewings to realize exactly where Torry's on the map: his hometown N.Y. or the place he was transferred, L.A. He eventually settles mostly on the West Coast. Although, back East, a sporadic b-story involves Martin Balsam planning a GODFATHER-style massacre of all the head Mafia Dons...

RIP Paul Koslo runs for cover in The Stone Killer

Stuart Margolin commands the practice-run operation in the Arizona desert (where he'll also reside in DEATH WISH) while Torrey gathers a series of clues from random L.A. lowlifes...

From future THE INCREDIBLE HULK roving reporter Jack Colvin stealing rental cars for hit-men, to the same years' MR. MAJESTYK sleazeball Paul Koslo as a bisexual trombone-playing criminal; the latter provides one of the best action scenes, which THE STONE KILLER doesn't have much of... replaced with strategic bursts of Michael Winner style body-count violence while the creative camera glides and zooms in the energetic fashion of that decade, and is sometimes too deliberate, noticeable, obvious...

The Stone Killer RATES: ****

Like, for example, a jazzy bongo exploding hippie commune as laughably banal as the hippie shindig at Jan-Michael Vincent's inherited mansion from THE MECHANIC: You can see the conservative viewer scoffing at the goofy counter-culture generation, which is obviously the intention...

A Film Noir dressed 1970's cop

And there's John Ritter as a rookie cop appearing with two future workmates: THREE'S COMPANY landlord Norman Fell as Bronson's supportive partner and THE WALTONS Ralph Waite as a racist cop for Bronson to noticeably disagree with: comparably cleansing an otherwise politically-incorrect image...

Which is something that occurs from the beginning: Torrey's initial killing is covered by the media that abhors his methods; he then questions himself through a liberal perspective (his victim couldn't climb over "the respective White Wall"). So there's a lot more going on than your typical Bronson action flick...

But throughout the maze-like jigsaw investigated by L.A. Bronson and masterminded by New York Balsam while practiced by Arizona Margolin, it all eventually connects without being as convoluted as the piecemeal leading up to the main course. Basically, THE STONE KILLER, in all its frenetic chaos, ends up like an orchestra's surreal tuning morphed into a unique and entertaining crime film symphony. Speaking of which, the main theme is brassy and fantastic.