Death Wish 2
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Movie Reviews of Death Wish 2
Movie Review: Character Development
Summary: 4 Stars
REASONS TO BUY:Unlike the first part, Bronson has a strong unyielding character. He's not the least bit afraid to get the job done this time and doesn't stop untill he gets every single on of those creeps that killed his daughter. It really gives you a sense of staisfaction even if it's just a movie.
REASONS NOT TO BUY:
This is the cut version. Evidently, some people believe that we are not intelligent enough to view certain scenes. I think it's worth the time to search the internet for the full uncut version.
Movie Review: bad but oh so good
Summary: 4 Stars
Gritty and trashy flick about vigilante Paul Kersey hunting down the creeps who preyed on his family - just like the ones who preyed on his family in the first Death Wish! LOL! Don't take this serioulsy and just enjoy the mayhem, weird/cool Jimmy Paige music, the 80's exploitation movie grime, and Bronson's Paul Kersey who is just too damn cool.Movie Review: MGM gets sloppy.....
Summary: 4 Stars
My personal favorite of the series. MGM used to be the leader in releasing older catalog titles with pride but they seem to have lowered their standards much to the fans dismay. Why would you release this DVD in fullscreen? Region 2 has a widescreen DVD on this title. What a letdown from MGM....Movie Review: "Do you believe in Bronson?"
Summary: 3 Stars
At some point in this flick, Charles Bronson confronts the sharp-nosed blond punk who raped and murdered his daughter. Bronson has a .45 automatic; the punk has a crucifix. The following is a record of their conversation:
BRONSON: Do you believe in Jesus?
PUNK: (terrified, holding up cross as protection) Yes I do.
BRONSON: Good. You're about to meet him.
BLAM. BLAM.
With such strring exchanges of theologically-based dialogue, "Death Wish II" was unleashed on American audiences. It was met with a certain amount of horror from critics and a certain amount of delight from audiences, and after 20-odd years that mixture is still valid. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have made so many sequels.
I don't know why so many years stood between the first "Death Wish" and the second, only that during the interregnum, director Michael Winner apparently decided that all the serious moral issues of vigilantism had been tackled in the first movie and all the audience really wanted to see from this point forward was Bronson exploding the brains of stupid, loathsome, and badly-dressed criminals. Oh, how right he was.
I remember the original "Death Wish." It was an almost unbelievably brutal film, in which a mild-mannered architecht abandons his pacifist convictions and goes on a violent rampage after his wife is murdered and his daughter raped by evil thugs. As a kid, I was shocked by the brutal way Bronson finished off one crook he had already shot in the guts -- firing a coup de grace into his spine while casually stepping over his crawling body. The most haunting feature of the movie is the futility of Bronson's quest -- he never catches the men who violated his family. Perhaps to redress this balance, we got "DW 2."
In this flick, Paul Kersey (Bronson) has moved to L.A. and is dating a lovely radio personality who has no clue about his past. His daughter is still semi-comatose after her rape, but her condition is improving. Everything is going well for Chuckie B., and of course, you know that ain't gonna last long.
A gang of mixed-race thugs in ridiculous 80s-era villain costumes (80s movie producers had no idea what gangs were actually dressing like in their own time period, so they combined 50s-era leather biker hats with 60s-era army clothes and threw in some punk and hippie fashions as well....see "Death Wish 3") does very bad things to Bronson's daughter and maid. Immediately, he seeks payback while trying to hide the fact from his honey. Wackiness ensues, including one of the greatest cinematic deaths in history which I must now describe:
Black thug, fleeing from Bronson, attempts to use his big-ass boom-box as a shield for his face. Guess what?? Radios do NOT deflect large-caliber bullets. Spectacular scene of radio bursting apart amidst shower of sparks, bullet going into thug's mouth, thug's head bursting in disgusting glut of blood....and me laughing hysterically as thug falls into lamp-post with stupid, shocked look on face. Word to the wise, chump: before you mess w/Chuckie B., invest in some body armor or a large helmet.
The acting in this film is almost horrendously awful, but the writing is worse, with the exception of one great sarcastic line about the police commissioner's wife taking self-defense classes because the crime rate is so bad. The scenes with the cops and DA are so badly acted and shot they look like out-takes or rehearsals somebody taped by accident, and even the camera seems to have been placed at random by some bored grip or assistant DP who had his mind on whatever was in the catering truck. Nor does the plot make any sense. My favorite moment is when the punks go to a major arms deal by city bus. Dude, you can afford $33,000 in exotic weaponry but you can't afford a car? A close second is when the gun dealer's big-ass caddy finds its way over a cliff (found everywhere in downtown LA) and explodes before it hits the ground. Villians really should stop soaking their cars in gasoline before they go to shoot-outs. Third is the scene where Bronson watches the villains bust out horrible dance moves on what appears to be a broken-down carousel in the middle of a park. Couldn't he have found it in his heart to kill them then, before I witnessed the big white oaf do what appears to be a slow motion version of the robot dance?
The most notable feature of "DW 2" in relation to the rest of the series is that this may be the only entry where Kersey's girlfriend gets away scot-free. She should consider herself lucky, because most of them get set on fire or dissolved in acid. It's really an unhealthy gig.
Such is "DW 2," a film that never fails to satisfy, if the sight of evil bastards getting shot to bloody goo satisfies you. On a side-note, the blond punk whose real name I can't remember has the distinction of having been immolated by Clint Eastwood in "Sudden Impact" and beaten to a pulp and thrown off a roof by Frank Sinatra in an episode of "Magnum, P.I." This man might want to engage in some vigilantism himself -- against his agent!
Movie Review: If we learn one thing, let it be that nobody ever should provoke someone with the name Charles.
Summary: 3 Stars
The list is as long as it is astounding. Bronson, Norris(as Chuck is short for Charles), Manson, Murphy(as Charlie is short for Charles). Sid could go on all day. This is like a public service announcement: If you meet someone named Charles or any variation, you better be as nice as you can.
We see this horrifying paralell again in Death Wish 2. In fact, you know what? Everything about this movie was horrifying. We, Sid the Elf were shocked that this movie was made in 1982. I mean, if I'm the only one I'll shut up. But this movie had a distinctly 70's feel to it. Maybe it was the curly white man fro on the leader of the gang, or the wierd colors in Bronson's house, or maybe the music. Let's get that out of the way right now. The music in this movie was...atrocious, deplorable, hillarious; you know, they all actually work. It was like the producer couldn't find anybody to do the music and said to himself, "Well, I did get my 13 year-old nephew that casio keyboard and synthesizer for Christmas(see? Santa treats everybody right!!!!) he could probably pull it off." Well, no it is not true. This film was just overpowered with wierd sounding synth music that exagerated every scene in the film. The music situation sums up the whole experiance of watching this movie, really. If you're looking for quality, probably not your first choice. But, if you're looking for some really great, top-notch B look no further.
While there were so many things that made Death Wish 2 b, the one that stood out the most were all the questions this film brought about in Sid's head. For example, how did this black cloud of people antagonizing Bronson follow him cross-country? Isn't it historically unprecidented that guys would just keep finding women in Bronson's life to assault causing him to lash out on both coasts of U.S. and A, greatest country in the world? Why oh why did Bronson's daughter jump out of the window while running away from the men who had just assaulted her?(although, this did open the door to people getting impaled in movies, so it's a wash really.) Is this how life was back then?(Sid was just a baby elf and does not remember the early 80's well.) Did gangs of hooligans go around looking for ugly Mexican housekeepers to force themselves upon? How did they manage to make 5 of these? This is only the second film in the series, so how long did it take Bronson to realize that maybe he should just do everyone a favor and live in the mountains alone, instead of moving from city to city causing mayhem?(Sounds familiar, right? Sid thinks the Real World producers got their idea from the Death Wish series.) Finally, how in the world did Lawrence Fishburne become a successful actor after this?
So, we've just finished watching a little over an hour of people antagonizing Bronson, and him performing a huge amount of vigilante killings. All that's left is for them to wrap everything up in a nice little bow and everyone will be happ--and it just ends. The closing credits rolled as Sid stared at the screen in astonishment. One of the most perplexing/funny moments in Sid's memory when it comes to film. Words really cannot do it justice. It just added another layer to this already wonderful b.
Another thing that was very b, and frankly brought the film to a higher level was Bronson. There is no way, we mean ZERO chance that Bronson memorized a single line for this film with the exception of "Do you believe in Jesus? You're going to meet him." They absolutely had cue cards for this one. And Bronson always took that one extra split second to read and deliver his lines. This just added so much to the film and Sid could go on forever, but we digress. So, definitely catch Death Wish if you're looking for extreme b some enjoyable action and Bronson at his finest or his worst depending on your point of view.