cult film freak: CHARLES BRONSON IN 'LOVE AND BULLETS' FEATURING PAUL KOSLO

Charles Bronson in LOVE AND BULLETS Year: 1979 Rating: ***

For some, during Charles Bronson's Cannon era, sadly gone felt the MGM days. But it was Lew Grade's ITC that bridged the action star in-between, and LOVE AND BULLETS... once again casting Bronson alongside wife Jill Ireland, keeping her protected from killers... makes the similar, decade-later action/adventure ASSASSINATION seem like THE MECHANIC by comparison...

Only instead of the Secret Service protecting the President's wife it's an Arizona cop protecting a gangster's moll from being killed by a hit man hired by said gangster. Providing Henry Silva another coldblooded turn, partnered with Bronson-flick regular Paul Koslo, both working for (or rather getting paid by) a stuttering mobster overacted by Rod Steiger, whose performance still fares better than Ireland's incessant dumb blonde (in a dumb blonde wig)...

Partial Poster Art From LOVE AND BULLETS

Not only does she drag Bronson down as the two traipse throughout snowy Switzerland, from trains to boats to tunnels backed by a nice Lalo Schifrin score that deserved a better platform, her fake southern accent is an annoying bulwark in a feature that does include some terrific moments of Bronson style violence, like lethal axe-throwing, creating a makeshift blow-dart, and being one step ahead of the killers that often seem as bored as their prey...

The latter without any real LOVE and hardly dodging any BULLETS, and, being more of a slowburn adventure than sporadic action, it is, particularly after midnight, not an altogether terrible way to kill time.