Review of Death Wish (2018) by Alec M — 22 May 2018

This NOT a 17% film. More like a 70-85% range sort of deal. It's a movie about being a man, how one fits in society and how sticking to the conventions and rules doesn't make you more in control of destiny. Te fact that it has been savaged is absurd and speaks volumes about the general cultural climate we live in in 2018. The message is in fact as timely as it ever will be, with themes like individuality, morality and ethics, the dark side of a free society and low carb diets. Bruce Willis hasn't cared this much about acting since 12 Monkeys, Eli Roth delivers his most succesful movie ever and Dean Fucking Norris is in it. There are many fantastic shots, like the ominous premonitory shot where Bruce Willis' daughter walks past an obscured area of the family house in silhouette, moments before being brutally wounded by a trio of burglars. The sound design is adequate but the score is really good, one of the most interesting post-millennial scores I can remember, using elements of electronic industrial synth stuff with almost cliched horror movie string dissonance, with a layer of percussive gutural digitalness sprinkled on top... It's really unsettling and sometimes memorable in a visceral kind of way, complements the tone of the movie perfectly and actually conveys information, whcih is high praise given what is usually delivered today en lieu of a proper score. This is a proper score, so it DOES NOT DESERVE 17%!!! Shame on you all for tearing down one of the better remakes of the Reboot Era. Shame.

PS: Special commendation for a very appropriate and ingenius use of split screens in a montage, both things cruelly underutilized in the post 9/11 world (except for Tarantino), both brought back and updated by Eli Roth in a sequence that, not only gives the film its visual flair, but actually works as a piece of storytelling in its own right, beyond the mere excercise in style. Film school material, no doubt.