Review of Death Wish II (1982) by Tom G — 22 Oct 2007

Everything about this movie is... well, kind of astounding.

The initial attack scene is far more objectionable than it could possibly need to be; it's hard to believe you are actually watching a movie in which a naked woman has her head bashed with a tire iron after being raped by screeching black men who hoot and holler like chimpanzees. How could nobody stop them and say, "guys, in twenty years someone will make Irreversible and it will be far less uncomfortable than watching this"?

The movie is perfectly obnoxious in its advocacy of vigilante justice. Whereas the first pic had token amounts of pathos carried over from the book, this is ceaseless in its conviction that Paul's crazy crusade is the right thing to do. It even has an odd, very frequent recurring motif of irritation at all organised religion, which I suppose is the film's way of subtly suggesting that Paul's crusade is so righteous, even God can't get in the way. Which is nice, because as a rabid Righty tract, the obvious thing would be to try and spin Paul's struggle as some sort of Old Testament vindication story, which would just create pesky ambiguities of purpose.

It manages to bring in such a wide range of then-trendy ideas about justice (and, bizarrely, mental health) for the sole purpose of showing how silly it thinks they all are. The only thing that matters is Paul and his murderous rampage. The police element in this movie makes the nonsensical ridiculousities in Death Wish or The Brave One seem plain straightforward. Bronson's acting whenever he's not shooting people (in visceral overdetail) is SO half-hearted - he knows as well as you do that any scene that does not involve a gun/brutal beating/condemnation of Liberal soft-cockedness is just filler, and he can't wait to get through them.

Which is to say, if you're watching a vigilante drama in the first place, it stands to reason this will be grand.