Review of Death Wish (2018) by Rawnchie14 — 07 Mar 2018

Death Wish is a fantasy action flick, as was the original. How did I like the film? It was not quite as raw and blunt as the original, however was a fun romp which left me satisfied by Willis's initially broken man gone furious. Sometimes not believable, but that's just how action movies tend to be - and Death Wish knew what it was and did it well.

Now, I've seen two extremes for this movie surrounding gun politics, and a disappointing amount of critics with shallow opinions derived from this. Now, I feel the message surrounding guns in the film was from both sides - showing the dangerously easy guns are to obtain with the obnoxious amount of resources on the internet and overly exuberant sellers of weapons - and the flip side to showing the value of them (albeit unrealistic wielding by Willis). How protecting yourself is best you can do, cannot always rely on the police - it's just the original movie's message reused in today's world. However my point is polarizing views give this movie a severely skewed rating in either direction based on just the gun angle, which is a poor assessment by a movie viewer not thinking about the film as a whole - and forgetting this movie is indeed a revenge action film. I just happened to believe the stance on gun violence was actually rather balanced. There was plenty of mockery of gun enthusiasts, and there were insinuations that a majority of gun wielders besides Kersey, and educated doctor, were in over their head while using one - and that Kersey's focused and unwavering character under fire as he actually used the gun, was an exception and not a commonplace (with bumbling criminals/professionals being wiped out). There were gun jams, and fortunate situations even for this character where it's highly likely others would have died - taking the movie aspect of these scenarios and painting them as fantasy. Yes, the good guy killed everyone and got away with it - well, so did the other Paul Kersey decades ago. A movie, is a movie.