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| Title: DEATH WISH Year: 1974 Rating: ***** |
Of director Michael Winner and actor Charles Bronson's crime-trilogy spanning three consecutive years from 1972 to 1974... centering on hit-men for THE MECHANIC and cops in THE STONE KILLER... the most popular was saved for last as DEATH WISH centers on a vigilante — ironically a cross between lawman and assassin...
It's also more skillfully directed and acted: specifically providing tough guy Charles Bronson... also a former character-actor dating back to the 1950's... a comparably grounded and vulnerable (starring) role...
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Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH with William Redfield & Chris Gampel
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At one point, when Bronson's Manhattan-based husband/father Paul Kersey's described as a bleeding heart liberal, it seems written for someone else... yet the progression from brooding every-man to the inevitably lethal mugger-slaying nighthawk takes it time, never feeling like a cheap set-up for the body count violence built into the title...
Mostly thanks to an exceptional script, allowing Winner to fluidly build every scene like separated vignettes joined as a whole... based very loosely on a mediocre novel by Brian Garfield that ends where the movie starts picking up steam — after Kersey's first actual kill following tense and suspenseful practice runs...
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| Charles Margolin and Stuart Margolin in DEATH WISH |
Yet the most memorable, pivotal sequence occurs early on... after his wife's killed with his daughter left mentally and emotionally traumatized by rapist muggers (led by Jeff Goldblum)... when Kersey takes a busman's holiday to Arizona, working for good-old-boy Stuart Margolin, gifting Paul with a pistol that once belonged to a Wild West gunslinger...
Deliberately suited for the artistic, theme-oriented auteur — making DEATH WISH not only Michael Winner's epitome of an urbanized modern Western... including a blunt, experienced sheriff (Vincent Gardenia) and a sporadic moral-conscious (son-in-law Steven Keats)... it's a unique blend of edgy 1970's exploitation with mainstream action for the uniquely tense and, from this point on, Hollywood superstar who'd already paid his dues, and then some.
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| Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH |
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| Jeff Goldblum as main rapist in DEATH WISH |
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| Hope Lange in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson and son-in-law Steven Keats in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH |
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| Christopher Guest cop cameo in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson and Hope Lange in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson and Stuart Margolin in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson and Edward Grover in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson and son-in-law Steven Keats in DEATH WISH |
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Charles Bronson in the very-very sequel-teasing end of DEATH WISH
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Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH poster-art
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| Charles Bronson, Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Logan from DEATH WISH poster |
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| Vincent Gardenia as the police chief from DEATH WISH |
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| Stuart Margolin from DEATH WISH |
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| Stuart Margolin from DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH |
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| Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH |
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