Review of Death Wish (1974) by # Bob — 17 Dec 2011

Paul Kersey: Nothing to do but cut and run, huh? What else? What about the old American social custom of self-defense? If the police don't defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves. .

"Vigilante, city style -- Judge, Jury, and Executioner".

What a beautiful portrait of New York Death Wish paints. Basically it is telling the viewer that if you walk on the street you will get mugged. One man is mugged like six times in the movie. A little excessive, but it makes its point; even if it is a stupid one. Carry a gun and shoot the muggers, vigilantism 101 I guess. The movie has a very exploitative and brutal nature. The makers also show that cops mean nothing. They won't find criminals, so go out and get a gun and kill anyone that fucks with you. Why, what a beautiful world that would be. Yeah, so by now you can see that I agree with absolutely nothing this movie is saying; from the gun rights issue to the vigilante justice. I may not agree with it, but I actually did like the movie to a certain extent.

An architects wife is murdered and his daughter is raped by muggers. The once peaceful man takes it upon himself to kill any mugger he comes across. New York is taken by storm, as muggings go down and the cops must decide if this vigilante is worth arresting anyway. He is basically doing their job for them, which leaves them with much more time to do the things cops really like too do, like eat donuts. .

The character lives by the motto of "Fight fire with fire." He is fighting violence by being just as violent. Whatever your stance on that is will tell you how much you will like the movie. In my case though, I didn't think I would like it at all because of this, but I actually enjoyed Charles Bronson as architect turned vigilante. .

The movie clearly sets up its sequel when the character leaves New York and moves to the less crime filled Chicago. I don't see myself watching all the sequels to this movie, as this was nothing more than average. But from Chicago, it would only make sense to move on to Detroit and then maybe Boston. You might as well clean up every criminal heavy city.