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Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 12/25/2009 : 9:12:17 PM
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I feel guilty over missing a self-imposed Christmas deadline. I'm not much of an online-community kind of guy, and this site is the one I've been a part of for longer than any other. Hell, with only a few exceptions, I do more RE-reading of the dissections here (Ken's and Readers') than I do first-time reading on other sites, movie-related or otherwise. So I'm gonna give you what I've got done so far, and will do the rest bit-by-bit.
So Merry Christmas, Jabootuans! I like being here, I like the dissections we do, and I hope we do more of them in 2010. I give you the first increment of my dissection of Death Wish. Cheers!!!
FOREWORD
In 1971, Dirty Harry proved that a vigilante movie could hit home with audiences. With its rejection of concern for criminals' rights in favor of victims' rights, the movie found the nation's movie-goers to be a very receptive and appreciative audience.
Months later, author Brian Garfield was walking home one evening and got mugged. A peaceful man, Garfield was still furious over having been a victim; but he knew that if he went out for revenge, he had a higher chance of dying than anybody he would go after. So he decided to write a novel. The novel was Death Wish. While it was not a smash hit, it did well enough to come to the attention of Hollywood. Somebody in Tinseltown recognized that there was a market for this kind of story. Changes had to be made, of course. The moral ambiguity of the main character actions had to be pushed into something less open to interpretation, the better to match the blood-pumping crowd-pleasing catharsis provided by Harry Callahan, with the added appeal that while Harry is a vigilante cop, Death Wish would be about a vigilante civilian.
Death Wish was an excellent success, of course, and for precisely the reason Dirty Harry was: The theme struck a personal chord with large swaths of the audience. With the explosion of urban violence still being new and still being totally unexplainable (no matter how much some folks would pretend to know what was causing it), it's perfectly understandable that audiences would love a movie that makes a hero of someone who falls prey to the same and decides not to take it anymore.
Still, while folks can (and for the most part, did) see the protagonist as a hero, the movie retains enough ambiguity that more cautious viewers could not quite Stand Up And Cheer for him, even if they did sympathize with him. This is in very stark contrast to Dirty Harry, where it's pretty much impossible not to be in full-blooded support of its protagonist.
The result is that while Dirty Harry is an excellent movie for both analysis and good-time viewing, I believe Death Wish is the better movie. It contains as much good-time fun, but more brain food, due to that very not-quite-hero status of its protagonist.
Here we go.
We open on a close-up of crashing surf. The camera pulls back to reveal a very pretty 40-ish blonde lady (Change Lange) frolicking in the waves. On the sand, her hubby (Charles Bronson) takes a few photos of her, then they begin snuggling on the beach towel. Bronson was in his early 50s at this point, and while he may not have had the most attractive face, his body was in great shape. His swim trunks are barely more than a Speedo, so we can see that’s he’s impressively trim. As for Lange, even with her boyish haircut (even Bronson’s hair is longer), she’s still fun to look at.
He wants to get it togethah right there on the beach, but she would rather go back to the hotel because “We’re civilized.” This smoothly introduces the overarching concept of this movie: How should civilized people behave, and what happens when they don’t?
The movie's Love Theme plays as we get a brief montage of them having a beautiful Hawaiian vacation, then a sudden title card shot of the New York skyline, complete with smoggy haze, overlarge sun, and Shock Sting. The credits play over shots of all that makes workaday urban living miserable: Traffic jams, concrete-grey monotone everywhere, etc. It’s nicely effective. It makes you want to rewind and go back to the beach. Shots of the back-in-the-grind couple unpacking from their holiday. Dig Bronson’s civilized pajamas.
Credits over, we cut to an office of some kind. Paul, now in professional attire and thick-rimmed glasses, banters with a coworker named Sam. Sam bitches that while Paul was away (the tropics don't appeal to Sam, it seems), that there have been 36 murders in the past two weeks and that folks who live in the city are gonna have to live outside of it and have longer commutes. Paul calmly says that the only folks who could do that are those who could afford it. Sam replies by calling Paul “a bleeding heart liberal.” This is an Informed Attribute, as don't see much of anything in Paul's character to demonstrate that he is. His answer, though, is in keeping: “My heart bleeds a little for the underprivileged.” Sam bitches that the underprivileged are kickin' their asses and that they oughta be put in concentration camps. From this, we can correctly gather that this guy is a caricature of armchair law-and-order types. Good enough, but he only gets two more scenes after this one, and never this exaggerated. The boss shows up, and the three of them talk shop to establish that theirs is an architectural firm, ending with a good-natured laugh about the the city's inability to handle urban crime.
What we have in this scene are professional-class people who like to talk about crime, but it's clear (especially from Mr. Concentration Camps) that for these people, violent crime is not something that they themselves come in contact with. For them, crime is something that Happens To Other People.
Cut to a supermarket, where Mrs. Kersey and her daughter, Carol, both pretty ladies classily dressed, are doing some shopping. Unknown to them, three thugs (Jeff Goldblum among them. Neat. We'll call them Goldblum, Baldy, and Spray-paint) are.......causing so much of a ruckus I don't see how nobody seems to notice them. I'm serious, making all sorts of racket, playing hot potato with a turkey, knocking into stuff, throwing stuff. Stealth, fellas, c'mon! The Kersey ladies check out and ask that their groceries be delivered to their apartment. In my whole life, I've only very briefly lived in a downtown area, and this is the first I've ever heard of grocery stores doing deliveries. Was that common? Is it still done today? One thing's for sure: It doesn't add to the impression that street crime is out of control. During my Navy duty, there was a several-month span when were in drydock at NorShipCo. in Norfolk, Virginia. The local pizza places would not deliver to the ship precisely because it was in a high-crime neighborhood. This supermarket looks like a nice-enough place, so I can't imagine that the thugs' high-volume antics are common there. **shrug** While the Kersey ladies are checkin' out, the thugs are doing the same. Spray-paint waves the can of spray paint he's buying right in the face of a security guard (what was HE doing during all the ruckus?) while Goldblum wiggles his tongue at the cashier (the lady who played Maria on Sesame Street. Neat.). As they make to leave, they notice the rich-looking Kersey ladies' bags being set aside for delivery, and take a gander at the address slip. Hey, Mr. Security Guard? What're ya doin'? You suck!
The thugs follow the Kerseys to their apartment home, sneaking in through a gate that's wide open for a furniture delivery. Dig the four nuns that get a lingering camera shot as they silently cross the street. Hell, why not have the Grim Reaper passed out on the sidewalk in a puddle o' barf while you're at it? While the Kerseys enter their luxurious suite, the thugs creep up the stairs, eventually knocking on their door and announcing themselves as grocery delivery. Carol sees nothing suspicious about the big ol' eyeball staring back at her through the keyhole, and opens the door (bunch of family photos in the foreground as she walks across the room). Mayhem ensues! The Kerseys are subdued as the thugs demand money and the spray-paint thug goes to town on the walls. Seeing that the Kerseys only have a few bucks in folding money in their purses, Goldblum whacks Mom, Baldy commences to raping Carol, and spray-paint waxes observant about kick-s**t-out-of-ing.
This bit is the hard scene to watch. Hard to recap, too. What is there to say other than, “It's a rape scene?” Nothing really deep or witty to add, but I will make some random observations:
Goldblum's seven words to Mom as he's whackin' her are the most quotable lines in the movie.
If those ain't implants, there the most immobile reals I've ever seen.
That's a unusual humiliation that Spray-Paint does; made more humiliating precisely because it's unusual.
Baldy does have convincing menace.
When they split after knocking Mom unconscious, I can see one of them getting spooked and leaving, but all three of them?
The staccato strings as Carol staggers to the phone is a little twee. Not quite comical, but almost. Ick.
Cut to Paul's office. Nice place, got his own secretary in the next room and everything. He gets a call from his son-in-law, Jack. Paul seems mildly unthrilled about his having to talk to his own son-in-law, but it never plays into anything. Paul brushes him off until Jack says that both of their wives have been hospitalized and to get to hospital ASAP.
In the hospital waiting room, Paul meets Officer Joe Charles who tells him that the ladies were beat up, and then he splits. Jack is no help either, only knowing how the thugs got in. I wonder if Jack doesn't already know that his wife was raped but is too busted up to say it out loud. The actor certainly plays the character that way, and he doesn't do badly. Paul exhibits expected rattled impatience, pausing only to notice a man bleeding right in front of the nurses and nobody is coming to his aid. He mentions it out loud. I suppose that bit could be a bit of character shading, that in the middle of his own family's trauma, he's pausing to express compassion for a total stranger. That's as close to the “bleeding-heart liberal” as we'll ever see from him in this movie. If I wanted to be snide, I could say that in keeping with bleeding-heart liberalism, he himself isn't doing a thing to help the bleeding man, either; but it would've been a plus had the early part of this movie contained more examples of Paul Kersey's kindly nature.
A doctor enters and tells Jack that his wife is okay, she's been sedated. He then tells Paul point-blank that his wife died a few minutes ago. For a moment that's supposed to be a life-changing experience for the main character, this is absolutely pathetic. Right off the bat, while I can't speak across-the-board, I can tell you from speaking with the doctors I work under that generally, a doctor who has to inform someone of the death of a relative will take them aside to break the horrible news; and will usually preface it with at least something, and not just plop it in his lap like that. “I'm sorry. She died a few minutes ago.” Second (and again, I might be mistaken), existential grief is not something Charles Bronson was particularly good at acting out. It shows here. He just freezes, then an extreme close-up of his face and he trembles and looks down. That's it. This movie, for all its attempts at evenhandness (successful and failed), still wants us to root for Paul. That's indisputable. So why not show us the corpse? Let's see the bruises, the blood, the unrecognizable mess that used to be Paul's wife? Get out blood pumpin' if that's the course you've committed to, movie!
Cut to the funeral, with symbolism-heavy snow pouring down from the heavens. Damn, Mrs. Kersey got a great turn-out! In foul weather, no less! I hope I can do that get that kind of attendance when I kack. Nothing remarkable here except that Carol looks like she barely knows or cares where she is. Catatonia from the rape.
Cut to a police station the same day. A man in the lobby bitches to a cop for not having found his dog who “paints such marvelous pictures with his paws.” Moments later, a cop has to calm an apoplectic black lady whose purse that contained all her money and credit cards was snatched. This isn't a bad touch. It efficiently illustrates that cops are swamped to the point of uselessness; it's not exaggerated or cartoonish, like the similar scene in Predator 2 or The First Deadly Sin, where the cop station is just packed to the rafters with folks all shouting at once. It's believable. This find-my-dog crap isn't helping the cops any; having your purse snatched can be horrifying when living paycheck-to-paycheck, and even worse when cops can't do much to help; and heightens the feeling that the NYPD, while they seem professional and well-meaning, just can't always be there to save the day all the time. Which, of course, is a key element that must be highlighted in any good vigilante movie.
Paul speaks to Officer Joe Charles about “the men who attacked my family.” He uses that word, “attacked,” twice here. I would think “killed my wife” might have a bit more gravitas when speaking to an overworked cop. Still, Officer Charles is friendly and refers Paul to the detective heading the case. Detective tells Paul that Carol didn't give much information and hasn't looked at mug shots yet because her husband wanted her to rest for a few days. Paul says that he'll try to get him to get her to come in. When Paul asks, the detective tells him point-blank that there's not much chance of catching the thugs, because “in this city, that's just the way it is.”
This scene is notable for how calmly Bronson plays it. He never seems too be that concerned about the investigation. When he asks the detective, “Just a chance?” look at his eyes. I swear there's a twinkle there. Maybe this is less-than-optimal acting, but there's another possibility that I'll mention later.
Brief bit in Jack's bedroom. He says hi to his still-comatose wife, but when he touches her, she recoils with a terrified scream. This makes Jack's indecisive paralysis easier to understand. A wife who's a zombie, no problem. But a wife who screams at the touch? How is he supposed to react?
Cut to Paul's place. He sits alone in a recliner and scowls at the TV that shows him a life insurance ad droning about “are you comfortable and secure,” etc., while showing images of a happy husband and wife. Unsubtle. It doesn't need to be here.
And here’s where the movie muffs the depiction of character motivation. Paul turns off the TV, gets up and wanders to the window. He looks outside to the street below, where anonymous goons are smashing into a taxi cab and making off with stuff. He stares for a while, then slowly pulls the curtain down. Cut to a bank (what bank is that?!? Looks like a damn palace!), where Paul exchanges an AJ for some rolls of quarters. Another cut to him in his office hefting the roll-of-quarters-in-a-sock for weight.
This is where I need to mention the novel upon which this movie is based. In Brian Garfield’s novel, Paul, after his wife is killed, becomes increasingly uncomfortable about his urban environment. Hard to call it full-blown paranoia when it’s already struck his own family and continues to happen right outside his own home, but that’s eventually what it becomes, and it happens gradually. It’s the medium through which Paul transitions from peaceful and content to reactive and violent, this new feeling that his neighborhood which was comfortable and familiar is now filled with menace. In this movie, though, that entire transition is depicted merely as him watching a car being broken into. That’s it. He doesn’t even have a facial expression as he watches, either. Again, there might be a reason for it that I’ll mention later; but it crushes whatever internal psychological drama the story otherwise would have.
In Paul's office, his boss compliments him on rebounding from his tragedy and diving back into his career. He then sends Paul “on vacation from New York.” Paul is to go to Tucson to see if he can smooth over a deal with a potential client.
Cut to Jack's place. Jack, noting that Carol seems to sleep too much, says that he's gonna take the psychiatric advice he's been given and take her to the shore for a while. Paul wants to come along, but Jack says that the doc's advice was to not have anyone around who might remind her of the rape. Paul's reaction is the only time in the movie that Paul raises his voice. “How the hell do I remind her of that day?!?” But he immediately goes back to Robo-Bronson, telling him quietly that he is to call Paul in Tuscon every other day to keep him up-to-date. I gotta say that the actor playing Jack really is doing a solid job of portraying a caring-but-ineffectual husband, and although he addresses his father-in-law as “Dad,” there's that definite.........I dunno, discomfort? Uncertainty?........that marks that this is not his actual offspring. I glean that he hasn't been married into the family for too long. It doesn't enter into anything, but it's a good to see that's giving it his all.
Action Scene 1
Cut to nighttime. Paul exits a bus a begins the walk home on the near-deserted sidewalks. False scare when a black dude lights a cigarette. Paul's face in close-up is nice. Juuuust enough in his eyes to see that he's rattled. Paul moves on. A few seconds later, a mugger wearing the most mahvelous headwear I've ever seen on a mugger gets the drop on Paul and demands money. I love Paul's gesture of putting his fingertips to his head. It convincingly looks like someone experiencing something that he had always avoided and was hoping to continue to avoid. Paul slowly turns around, then whacks him in the face with the quarter-filled sock. The would-be mugger runs away. Paul stares is astonishment for a moment, then runs away himself in the opposite direction. For me, that's a perfect touch that hits home; because the one time I repelled a mugger, I did precisely the same, ran away in the opposite direction! Perfect!
Back home, Paul's uncontrollably shaking hands pour himself some booze. Then we get a scene reminiscent of the bone scene 2001: A Space Odyssey. He pulls the sock out of his pocket, gets a pleased look on his face as Horns of Realization are heard, then suddenly swings it into a potted plant (Cruelty to vegetables!). Thrilled, he swings it again at the open air at about head level (nice touch that he doesn't control it very well on that swing, it naturally would be hard to if it doesn't hit something. I'd bet that wasn't planned, either.). He swings it into a padded chair, sending wooden pieces flying everywhere. This scene, too, hits the spot beautifully. The first time you come out on top, whether it's a mugging or a elementary-school playground fight or anything in between, it feels fantastic. Doesn't it, folks? And in an averted mugging, where the stakes are much higher, the thrill is proportionately higher. To finally have proven in fashion indisputable that you are not powerless.....fantastic feeling. There's only one problem: This movie hasn't touched upon the psychological issue of powerlessness and one's reaction to it, and by the time it does, the plot will have already moved on enough that it will no longer matter.
Cut to Tucscon airport, where Paul is greeted by Aimes Jainchill, who recognizes Paul instantly because “You looked like a New Yorker.” Given that this is an airport where folks from all over arrive, I don't see how how could've narrowed it down that much. Aimes has got the Western part down, though. Cowboy hat and believable Southwestern accent. This entire Tucson scene is to drive home the contrast between New York City living and country living. It's clear that the movie wants us to believe that country living is preferable. Having lived in both, I need no convincing, but it's still off-puttingly obvious.
They drive out to a horse ranch (in a car with bullhorns on both hood and roof, natch). The scenery is absolutely gorgeous. In contrast with all the indoor scenes and dark unhappy outdoor scenes we've been given so far, this really is a breath of fresh air. Just as the movie intended. Manipulative? Or just good at what it does? You decide. Aimes speaks of the need to preserve the hills because he wants “space for life!” Get it?
Cut to a faux old-time Western studio lot. Noose in the foreground. Remember in Ken's review of Death Wish 3 when he mentioned a scene with a gun prominently in the foreground and a later scene with a menorrah in the foreground? In this scene, Michael Winner gives us a noose in the foreground. Get it?!? Aimes and Paul stop to watch a deliberately cheesy re-enactment of an Old West shoot-out. Paul seems mildly interested, but when the faux bad guys grab the faux marshall and begin beatin' the crap out of him, he winces, and his face assumes a more intense interest throughout, while the audience applauds enthusiastically.
Cut to someone's office, where Aimes is still adamant he won't build anything that harms the hills, or will “turn into a slum in 20 years.” He will only build houses if “you can't hear the toilets flush next door.” Don't get me wrong, folks, I'm totally with Aimes here. But for Christ's sake, Aimes, lay off the guy, would'ja? For all you know, he might not like city life any more than you do! Paul and Aimes agree to work together to see if Paul can plot something that fits Aimes' rigid conservationist standards. This leads to a very nice 45-second montage of Paul and an unidentified somebody doing.....I know nothing about architecture, so this is gonna sound buffoonish here......they're doing whatever you call it when architects go out into the field with those stakes with the red ribbons on them, and look through that scope on the tripod, and write orderly alphanumerics onto a clipboard and all that. Scouting, I guess. It's a good scene because the scenery is beautiful, what they're doing looks realistic (at least to my untrained eye), it gives Paul's profession some depth, and Bronson looks great in a Western setting.
Cut to Paul's onsite workspace, where Paul is working late. Aimes enters and notes that Paul worked last last night as well. He hyperintuitively asks “What's gaining on you, Paul?” I like Paul's answer, especially with Bronson's low-key delivery. I can't tell if there's supposed to be an unspoken “ya dumbass” there or not. Aimes invites Paul to come join him for dinner at a gun club, explaining that at a gun club, “We shoot guns.” (Yeah, you'd guess.) Even if you've never seen or heard of this movie, it's obvious where this is going.
At the remarkably deserted gun club, Aimes preaches. I hate to describe it as such because, again, I already know everything he's telling us, and I'm with him on this. But goddammit, that doesn't prevent it from being annoying. To a liberal, this must be insufferable as s**t to listen to, doubly so in Aimes thick Southwestern accent. Paul certainly has admirable patience, although he seems distracted by the furnishings and is likely not even listening. When Aimes asks about Paul's military service, Paul says he was a C.O. in a medical unit. When Aimes mistakes that for Commanding Officer, Paul corrects him, “Conscientious Objector.” I don't know if the movie did this on purpose or not, but I interpret this as Paul being sly with Aimes. To pretty much anybody, and to definitely anybody military, C.O. naturally stands for Commanding Officer. When you hear “C.O.,” you automatically think, “Commanding Officer.” So if the movie knew this, I'm guessing that Paul was annoyed by Aimes preaching as is sneaking up on Aimes pomposity rather than facing it head-to-head. But again, that's if the movie knew this, so...**shrug**. Aimes says, “You're probably one of those knee-jerk liberals!” Movie, lay off!
Aimes does make an irrefutable point, though: That New York, with its strict gun laws, has all sorts of gun violence, while Tucson, with it's permissive gun laws, has very little gun violence. That was no anomaly, either.
Aimes gives Paul an 1842 percussion pistol (I'm a percussionist myself. What are string pistols and brass pistols like?) and asks, “You know how to fire it?” Foul on Aimes. If you don't know whether he knows how to fire it, you really shouldn't be giving it to him. But Paul takes careful aim and hits the bulls-eye, eliciting a impressed whoop from Aimes (someone more knowledgeable with guns, tell me: He grabs his right wrist with his left hand. Is that a common and/or advisable grip?). When Aimes asks how a conscientious objector became that good with firearms, Paul tells him that his father was a gun enthusiast until he was killed in a hunting accident. This is delivered with a perfect quiet intensity, and seems to throw cold water on Aimes' glee. It's a very effective way to get the more rabid gun enthusiasts in the audience to sober up a bit. I'll speculate that this was put in for precisely the purpose, making me wonder if the makers of this movie were a bit uncomfortable doing a pro-gun movie like this and wanted to temper themselves. If so, it's well done.
Cut to the office, where Paul is showing Aimes his completed scale model of the development. Aimes is pleased with Paul's work. Plenty of houses, but plenty of space as well, and the hills are still there. Aimes is sold on it. At the airport, Aimes gives Paul a wrapped going-away present, thanks him for his work, and says that Paul is welcome in Tucson should he ever “get tired of living in that toilet.”
Back in New York, Jack tells Paul that Carol has been hospitalized again. Jack hadn't told him on the phone because “I didn't see any reason to get you all disturbed on a long-distance call.” Uh.....I can see a few. If seems that Carol's mental state has deteriorated. “She's almost a goddamn vegetable.” They somberly discuss the possibility of institutionalization. Then Jack gets an interesting bit. He says, “You want to know what they are? They're statistics on a police blotter. Mom and Carol along with thousands of other people. And there is nothing that we can do to stop it. Nothing but cut and run.”
Remember when I said that this movie brings up the issue of powerlessness too late for it to matter? Here it is. That quote from Jack would be meaningful it had come 15 minutes earlier. As it is, it's totally out of place. They're discussing treatment options for Carol. The cause of her needing treatment isn't at issue right now. Clunky.
Back at home, Paul wistfully looks through the pics he took of his wife in Hawaii as the Love Theme plays. Then he picks up the gift Aimes gave him in Tucson. Opening the shiny box, he finds that it's a pistol! Mmmm.....given how much Aimes was goin' on about folks not being allowed to own guns in New York, I don't know why he gave Paul one. Does he want Paul to be in possession of an illegal firearm (redundant expression as far as Aimes knows)? How did Aimes know that Paul wouldn't just turn it in anyway? Paul aims the gun at nothing in particular as Ominous Music plays.
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2009 : 9:22:36 PM
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Action Scene 2
Paul is strolling through the park a cold night. False scare when two young guys bump into him, but they carry on past, laughing about the “worst f**kin' movie” they've ever seen. Jabootuans! Paul continues his stroll, but notices a figure keeping pace with him on top of a small rise. With the look of someone who is trying to maintain his calm (and IMO, it looks like he's succeeding. I swear, Bronson isn't just low-key in this movie, he's subterranean-key!), Paul continues on for a while, but when he notices that he's still being tailed, he comes to a stop. The figure runs down the rise and stops behind Kersey. It's an ordinary-lookin' guy, short hair, brown jacket. In a realistic touch, he asks Paul, “You got money, man?” Again, that hits home for me, because I had the same spoken to me: “Why don't you gimme some money, man?” I love it! When Paul turns away, the guy draws a pistol and repeats the request with a bit more gusto. A close-up of his face reveals that his eyes are bulgin' out like he's whacked. Credit to the actor: He only got one scene and only one close-up, but he sure made it count! Close-up of Paul's face as looks like he's giving himself a mental three-count. He slowly turns around, revealing the pistol he's holding at gut-level. He shoots the guy in the gut, causing him to collapse to the ground, writhing and retching in agony. Paul watches in Bronson's approximation of horror at what he's done, then begins striding, then trotting, then running full-speed away from the scene. I like this. It looks like he's running not avoid getting caught, but because he can't stand what he's just done. I like it! Cut to Paul's home, where he sinks to his knees, muttering random entreaties to his preferred deity; then he staggers to the bathroom, collapses in front of the toilet, and barfs (Props to the sound editors, that sounded like a real barf!). This is so refreshing to see after having seen so many movies feature folks who become hardened vigilantes pretty much instantly. Only problem is, the movie could've run with this gradual transition for much longer and to much better effect, but doesn't. I'll explain later.
Cut to that morning at the crime scene. Inspector Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia), a pudgy man whose physical shtick is that he's always blowing his nose, is chatting with the beat cops on scene. The deceased was a drug addict with a grand larceny conviction. Naturally, as the movie doesn't want us hatin' on Paul this early. Ochoa deduces from the corpse, his still-fully-loaded pistol, and his still-remaining wallet that this was not a case of a mugger trying to mug another mugger. Inspector Ochoa will prove to be one of the very best things about this movie. The Bumbling Cop cliché does not apply here at all. Ochoa will prove to be competent and clever throughout, and city bureaucracy is pretty level-headed as well. I love it!
In Paul's office, we get a close up of the New York Daily Star, whose headline reads “Ex-Con Killed, Motive Unknown.” Waitaminit, even allowing that this ain't the New York Times, if crime in this city is so out of control, how does the murder of an ex-con merit a screaming-loud front-page headline? Paul locks his gun in his closet. His boss and Sam (Mr. Concentration Camps) enter Paul's office and compliment him on his work in Tucson. After looking at the scale model on his desk for literally less than a minute, they decide it's good enough to try to sell to their higher-ups. Way to make the sale, Paul!
Action Scene 3
Cut to nighttime. Paul is walking home, and chances upon a mugging in progress (look at the victim's legs as he's dragged into the alley. I guess he figures he might as well get it over with). Paul stands motionless as he watches, and it's unclear what he's thinking or feeling because of Bronson's perfectly immobile expression. The pause itself could be Paul thinking “I should just keep on going, but dammit, I gotta do something,” or he could be thinking “Here we go. Just what I was looking for,” or he could be thinking, “Okay Paul, just like last time, no problem, you can do this.” C'mon Chuck, give us something here.
The muggers notice him, and they slowly approach him with knives drawn (hey victim, now's your chance!), and Paul slowly approaches them with pistol concealed in coat pocket. Wild West showdown flavor to this, right down to the minimalist avant-garde soundtrack. Paul draws his pistol and blows two of them away with one shot each. The third runs for it, but.....either gets shot or doesn't get shot, I can't tell. He staggers for a moment and puts a hand to his lower back like he's been shot there, but he's still mobile enough. Paul gives chase as he tries to climb a chain link fence, but Paul....either takes careful aim or has an internal debate about whether or not to shoot a fleeing man...., and shoots him in the back. He glances around a moment, then flees. Mildly comic reaction shot of the almost-mugging-victim as he collapses with a “Holy f**k!” look on his face.
Action Scenes 1 and 2 were similar to each other except for the stakes involved. #1 was knife vs. quarter-sock, while #2 was gun vs. gun. Action Scene 3, though, is different from the first two in that Paul had the option to stay out of harm's way. He chanced upon it, could've kept going, but decided to stick around. We would be able to read something into this, if not for Bronson's expressionlessness. I'll get into that later.
Later that same night, a cop tries to grill the almost-mugging-victim, but is frustrated by AMV's refusal to say what the shooter looked like. The cop sports a mustache so big it could declare independence from his face. Inspector Ochoa calmly tells the cop, named Hank, to forget the interrogation and go do the forensic stuff. He then knowingly asks AMV if he got a good look at the shooter. When AMV emphatically shakes his head, Ochoa smile-sneers and says, “You're full of s**t,” but seems to let it slide. Again, I like this Ochoa guy. He knows what AMV's deal is, and he's neither surprised nor resentful that AMV won't talk.
Cut to the Hampshire Institute For Mental Rehabilitation. There go those nuns again. Paul kisses the still-comatose Carol goodbye, Jack does the same, then a nun lead Carol away. So Paul and Jack have had Carol committed. It's a nicely done scene, brief and sad, with no dialogue. And with that, Carol exits the movie.
Cut to what I guess is Jack's Hampshire getaway home. Jack laments that if they had the brains to live out here in the country, none of this would've happened, and their spouses would be all right. Then we get to what I want to call preach, but I just can't because Bronson is so low-key about it. Believably, because it's just he and his son thinking out loud to each other. Here it is in full:
Paul: Nothing to do but cut and run, huh?
Jack: What else?
Paul: What about the old American social custom of self-defense? If the police don't defense us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves.
Jack: We're not pioneers anymore, Dad.
Paul: What are we, Jack?
Jack: What do you mean?
Paul: I mean, if we're not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when they're faced with a condition or fear, do nothing about it, they just run and hide?
Jack: Civilized?
Paul: No.
There's “civilized” again. This movie is asking us what civilized people oughta do when faced with an uncivil situation, and at what point do actions of the civilized disqualify them from calling themselves civilized? Has Paul crossed that line? If so, what is an appropriate comeuppance for him? **shrug** Good questions, I s'pose.
And with that scene, Jack exits the movie.
This tells me that Jack is in this movie solely to serve as somebody Paul can express himself to. Makes sense, because given that he's a loner and trying to keep a low profile, Paul wouldn't be a very talkative guy, so the movie needs someone for Paul to sound off to. It also explains why Jack comes off as a mild wuss. It makes Paul seem more manly in comparison. It also explains why Carol is kept around as long as she is when she's really every bit as much of a casualty of the rape as her mother. Hard to keep Jack around if his wife ain't around for Jack and Paul to fret over.
Cut to police HQ. Close-up of a poster featuring an angry-looking guy pointing a gun right into the camera. Ochoa steps right in front of it so that the gun is pointing right at the back of his head. Artsy-fartsy! Ochoa lectures his strategy to his force. He's figured out that the motive for the killings was revenge (a bit intuitive, but I can allow it, given the absence of any other obvious motive). So he orders his force to comb the records for anyone who has had a family member killed by muggers in the last three months. Since this vigilante is good with guns, he wants the cops to narrow it to anyone living in who served in wartime, starting with Vietnam (“they're youngest and toughest”) and working back to WWII. He bloviates that it's an impossible task, but it's all they've got so far, and at least it'll enable them to tell the press that they have definite clues (they won't tell the press that they have about a thousand definite clues). Look for Olympia Dukakis as the Princess Leia look-alike who says, “Oh my God.” **shrug** I only know her as the sister of Michael, I couldn't tell ya what she's been in, but I guess somebody digs her.
I love Ochoa here. If he can accept him correctly deducing the motive, everything he tells his force to do stands to reason. It's great to see that, it really is.
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2010 : 10:53:55 AM
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I made the most careless error! That ain't Jack's last scene, he's got one more. Sorry 'bout that, folks, I blew it! The point of why he's in this movie still stands, but it ain't his last scene. I blew it!
Action Scene 4
It's the subway scene! Hurrah for subway scenes! Dirty Harry didn't have a subway scene. Prolly because the Bay Area's subway system is mostly above-ground, so you just don't get that subterranean zest.
Two thugs, looking like Frank Zappa and Bruce Springsteen, board the subway as is pulls out. They scan the commuters with obvious villanous intent until they notice the uniformed cop keeping watch. They slink away into the adjacent car. Notice the newspaper a commuter is reading, “'Stop Vigilante' Mayor Demands.” Again, if the city is so crime-ridden, how is this bold-print front page news yet? They continue to mosey a few more cars down until they enter a car where Paul is sitting there quietly reading a newspaper, with a middle-aged black couple also present.
The music goes avant-garde again. Paul, for his part, notices their presence with a glance and a uncomfortable sigh. I like that bit. Is he thinking, “C'mon, guys, just pretend I'm not here,” or is he thinking, “Okay Paul, there they are. Do it nice and cool, just like last time. You can do it.” The train comes to a stop, and the black couple disembark, leaving Paul and the thugs alone. At this point, we get a shot of Paul where we can see he's got a bag of groceries. This'll be interesting later.
Frank thug covers the door to the next car, while Bruce thug moves in. Bruce slashes Paul's newspaper down the middle, and makes a bring-it-on/cough-it-up gesture to Paul. Paul looks startled and frightened, but shoots Bruce through the newspaper. He stands up, shoots Frank twice, then....calmly turns and shoots the already-motionless Bruce in the back as he lays there! The train comes to a stop, he calmly walks out of the car and out of the station, while an embarking off-screen lady notices the corpses and immediately starts screaming her head off. I'm not sure how believable it is that Paul could stroll away without anybody at all getting a description of him. The bodies are noticed literally two seconds after he exits the car, there are half a dozen people nearby, including one cop. The shock of hearing the lady's screams would naturally draw everyone's attention in the direction of the screams and away from the exiting passenger. Still, he's the only exiting passenger, and he's the only person running up the stairs to street level. One cop and a few civilians do follow him to street level, but they all just look around while he makes his slow-speed escape.
Shooting the Bruce thug a second time is the point at which the viewer can no longer Stand Up And Cheer for Paul. The thug has already been shot once in the gut or chest, he's lying face-down, he is flat-out out of it. Neither heroism nor self-defense excuses that. Paul is now a Not-Quite-Hero.
Cut to a police press conference. A pretty intense one, as we see and hear at least three different reporters who are reporting in foreign languages. With New York being a great melting pot, maybe it's still just local, but the scene feels like the vigilante is becoming an international sensation. The Police Commissioner takes the podium and tells the press and the viewing audience that they've connected the three homicides by the .32 slugs present at all three. He implores his unknown quarry to turn himself in. During the Q and A, he says that the reports that the crime rate have fallen are untrue.
At a restaurant, Paul is having a business dinner with his coworkers, and they're watching this press conference. Paul seems to suppress a smile at the Commissioner's words. He tells Mr. Concentration Camps that the only way to find out if the crime rate really is falling is to take a walk on Columbus Avenue. I rewind and watch this a dozen times, and I can't tell from vocal tone if Paul is suggesting that crime is falling or the opposite. Mr. CC certainly doesn't believe it, and turns his attention to his newspaper, which contains a front-page story, “No Break Seen in Vigilante Vendetta.” Vendetta? Ochoa did tell his force earlier that revenge was the motive they were assuming, but you're telling me that he told the press that as well?
At police HQ, Inspector Ochoa disgustedly receives a call from someone confessing to the murders, the 23rd such call he's received. This movie does do a real good job of depicting events as a huge phenomenon without having to resort to showing us reaction from unrelated places. Very well done!
Hank (the huge-mustache guy from earlier) has appropriated Paul's groceries from the subway car where he left them. (The issue of whether Paul forgot them or didn't intend to take them with him creates an interesting ambiguity. I'll get into it later). Hank didn't get any prints from the bags, but he got the sales slip. D'Agostino's Market! The receipt doesn't explicitly specify which D'Agostino's outlet, but Ochoa figures that the mishmash of numbers on the receipt has gotta contain an identifier somewhere in there. He orders Frank to get on it, and to find any relatives of mugging victims in the vicinity of that outlet. “People are inclined to buy groceries in their own neighborhoods.”
Cut to Paul's home at an unspecified time later. Jack is uncomfortable with Paul's inexplicable cheerfulness. Paul's painted the walls a cheerful but hard-on-the-eyes yellow, he's blasting Herbie Hancock on the radio (nice way to let the soundtrack's composer show off a bit. I like it!), he doesn't seemed bummed out over yesterday's visit to Carol, and he's got a near-celebratory mood on. When Jack asks why so high, Paul snaps, “What do you want me to do, moan and groan for the rest of my life?” Then Paul reins himself in and turns his attention to the liver and spaghetti (Yuck!).
I love that bit. When Paul snaps at Jack, his words might be a cover, but he might actually mean them. This is where I must refer you to the ten-shades-of-excellent compare-and-contrast of movie and source material at The Duck Speaks. In that piece, Zack Handlen writes that, in the novel, Paul's killing spree is not over the loss of his wife, it's over the loss of his comfortable routine. This scene indicates the same for movie-Paul as well. Paul's good mood may be because he's now kicked the powerlessness he felt, so when he snaps at Jack, he really means it. He really doesn't feel the need to moan and groan. He's reasserted himself to a no-longer-friendly world, and it makes him feel good; and he's not gonna let Jack throw cold water on it with his constant fretting. Later in the movie, there will be a brief bit that will further the idea that movie-Paul is less about his wife than about his routine.
And that, I promise you, really is Jack's last scene in the movie.
Until I get the next bit up, here's a link to The Duck Speaks' piece. It's better than anything I could ever write. http://badmovieplanet.com/duckspeaks/reviews/2004/death-wish |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2010 : 9:58:56 PM
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Action Scene 5
In a downtown diner, Paul is having dinner while wearing his wealthy-looking coat. There are a bunch of hookers in the place being annoying, especially the one who flamboyantly picks her nose. Movie, stop doin' that, there ain't no reason to go grossin' out the audience. Paul notices a pair of black guys sitting there. They notice him and whisper amongst themselves. Paul pays the waitress and leaves, and the black guys follow. I don't go around crying “RACISM!!!” at every little thing that doesn't please me, but these guys don't look particularly mean or scuzzy. They're dressed respectably, they're groomed well for the 70s,...**shrug**...I never woulda pegged 'em for muggers. Maybe he noticed the way they were looking at him, but judging from how it was edited, it doesn't look like he even saw them scoping him out.
Outside, Paul enters the descends the stairs to the subway platform. The thugs scamper to the next entrance to the same platform and descend as well. On the platform, we see in a few wide shots that the place is entirely deserted.
Anal blood.
City That Never Sleeps, huh? There is literally nobody in this huge cavernous platform. Given how crowded the diner was, I'm guessing it wasn't exactly wee hours of the morning. I don't know how late New York subways run, but I do know that San Francisco-Oakland BART stations have at least a fair number of people milling about right up until the last midnight runs.
Paul calmly strolls down the platform, and suddenly the thugs appear at the exit he's walking towards. The soundtrack goes Eerie Sustained Keyboard Note (there might be a slow trill in there, as well, more like a throb of a half step or so). When the thugs and Paul meet, they flank him. One asks for a match, Paul offers one, then they both draw switchblades and demand money.
Paul must be getting a bit of a swagger here, because instead of immediately shooting while they're still unaware, he says, “You'll have to take it.” When they charge him, he shoots one thug through his coat pocket, dropping him to the cement. The other thug stabs him in his other shoulder, and Paul shoots him as well, sending him staggering for the exit.
Then Paul does something else that doesn't feel right in both senses of the word “right.” He shoots the already-prone thug again, killing him. Then he takes very careful but notably one-handed aim, and shoots the now-far-away fleeing thug in the back.
Not right morally: Just like in the subway car, there's no reason to shoot the guy who's already down. Granted, he's still alive, we can see that. But he's still out of the fight. There's no call for shooting him again.
Not right believably: With one thug already down, shouldn't the one who is fleeing be your first target, not your second? And no matter how good of a shot he was back at the gun club in Tucson, why in the world would you not use both hands from that distance? Freeze your player at 1:02:48 and look how far away the fleeing thug is from Paul. That's a challenging shot! We could invoke his newly-stabbed left shoulder, but Paul is able to pull his left hand out of his coat pocket, so I'm not buying that he wouldn't use both hands, even with his injury.
The fleeing thug survives that bullet as well (for now) and makes it to the stairs and up to street level, where he collapses in front of two cops who are......what in the world are they doing? Looks like they're trying to get a pimp to lay off his lady, but it just looks goofy as f**k. One of the cops tends to the thug while the other cop draws his gun and descends the stairs. A civilian kneeling over the dead thug tells the cop “He went that way!” (how would he know? If he saw the shooter, you'd think he would've gotten a little bit of a description, but it's soon revealed that he got none). Cop runs in that direction and down more stairs to another platform (Does New York have a multi-tiered subway system? Or was the first platform not really a platform? Am I a dunce? Somebody, come to my aid!). He juuuuust misses Paul getting onto the train and taking a seat, and stops in front of the train just three feet from where Paul relaxes as the train pulls out.
Okay, with this action scene, we've got Paul turning it up just a little bit more. With his previous victims, Paul wasn't looking for them, they found him (although it's a bit less true with the scene in the subway car). Here, though, Paul seems to have led them to him. I suppose I can believe that it would play out the way we see it (allowing for the deserted area, of course), except that there must've been a hundred false alarms where he'd try to lure a mugger to him, only the “mugger” wasn't a mugger at all, leaving Paul standing there wondering what was taking his quarry so long. How does he get to work on time like this?
[Short bit tonight. I'm back to work, like I figure most of y'all are. I hope I'm doing okay with this.] |
Edited by - Food on 01/04/2010 10:04:04 PM |
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Nlneff
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
84 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2010 : 5:58:01 PM
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Great review so far.
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2010 : 12:22:27 AM
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Thank you kindly, NIneff!
Cut to Paul in his bathroom removing his blood-soaked shirt and applying gauze to his stabbed shoulder. Unremarkable other than Bronson not really seeming to be in much pain.
Cut to an Operating Room, where docs perform surgery on the thug who fled. A beat cop tells Inspector Ochoa that the thug said he had cut the vigilante; but just then a doc comes in from the O.R. to report that the patient cannot be saved, too much internal bleeding. He gives Ochoa the .32 slugs.
Cut to Paul's living room for a scene I like. Paul sits down in his robe to watch TV. There's a news story on about the latest vigilante homicide (btw, the word “vigilante” get used so much in this movie that typing this dissection has made me thoroughly sick of it). The anchorman says that the vigilante's actions, lawless as they are, are giving people new attitudes about street crime. An on-scene reporter introduces us to Mrs. Alma Lee Brown, a quintessential little old sassy black grandmother: Stoop-shouldered, scarf on her head, purse in hand, and charmingly tells us how she fended off a pair of purse-snatchers with a hat pin. She and her neighbors are proud of her spunk, although I think it would've been more effective if the movie didn't also show us her repelling them, because it just looks goofy as crap.
Then the reporter talks with a construction foreman, a burly man with a think New York accent. Foreman says that when one of his men noticed a mugging going on, the entire crew chased a purse-snatcher and “roughed him up a little.” We see this happen, too, and the crew stomps all the f**k over him. When asked about the disproportionately severe injuries, the foreman says in an uncaring who-me voice, “Poor guy must've fell down.”
Throughout this entire news clip, Paul is idly thumbing through one magazine after another, all with stories about him on the cover. Time, Harper's Weekly, etc. How ol' Stone-Face feels about it, I can't tell.
This scene is excellent because it serves to show us the indisputable ups and indisputable downs of vigilantism. Nobody in their right mind wouldn't root for Alma Lee Brown to stab somebody's eyes out, but nobody in their right mind would be comfortable with a construction crew using vigilantism as an excuse to go stompin' on folks. I imagine that plenty of post-movie discussions mentioned this scene probably more than any other non-action scene.
Cut to police HQ. The cops have identified which D'Agostino's Market the groceries on the subway came from. Olympia Dukakis is running down the numbers that the cops have compiled per Inspector Ochoa's instructions. Narrowing it down to within a 2 x 6-block distance from that market, there are only 14 men there who meet Ochoa's criteria (military veteran, family victimized by mugging). Institutional sexism! At no point does anybody mention the possibility of a female vigilante.
Brief talk of how Ochoa figures the vigilante to live near that market. Ochoa says that the first vigilante killing occurred 2 and a half blocks from D'Agostino's, so Ochoa is running with that being the vigilante's home neighborhood. Another cop points out that the vigilante was carrying the groceries on a subway five miles away. Ochoa counters that that must've been a lure; a guy with groceries has money on him, and hands occupied. Ochoa orders his force to do complete background checks on all the men they've narrowed it down to. It might seem like a bit of a leap for Ochoa to assume that the vigilante must live near D'Agostino's; but watching Ochoa, I get the sense that he knows damn well that it's a leap, but it's the best they have. His only possessions in custody are from D'Agostino's, and his first victim was in that neighborhood. In the absence of any other leads, run with it!
Cut to a dinner party for a 30-second scene that exists solely to give the audience some debate points about vigilantism. Most of it is stuff that the audience has likely already thought of, so this scene is pretty useless. At the end of it, a handsome elderly guy points at Paul and says, “He hasn't been the same since that terrible incident. **shrug** Coulda fooled me.
Cut to Ochoa meeting Hank, the half-man/half-mustache cop, in Hank's car outside of Paul's apartment building. Hank's tone of voice indicates that he has been going down the list of potential suspects and has now gotten to Paul. Ochoa is intruiged that Paul's wife and daughter were killed/raped by three men posing as delivery boys from the D'Agostino's Market, but notes that conscientious objectors make for unlikely vigilantes. Still, Hank has a man on site to keep an eye out, and it's Patrolman Joe Charles*, the same cop who met Paul at the hospital and at the police station early in the movie.
* - I don't get the accent Hank puts on when he says “Patrolman Joe Charles.” And goddammit, Hank is ugly when he scowls!
Officer Charles greets Paul when Paul exits the building. The conversation is interesting:
Joe: “Good morning, Mr. Kersey....**awkward silence**....Joe Charles, Mr. Kersey.”
Paul: “Oh yes, of course.”
Joe: “How do you do? Good to see you again. How's your daughter?”
Paul: **shrug**....The same.”
Joe: “Take care.”
What makes this interesting is that this cop is Paul's contact with the investigation into who killed his wife, but he doesn't bother asking if any progress is being made, and indeed, he doesn't even recognize Patrolman Charles. This tells us that he hasn't been following up, which in turn indicates that he's pretty much forgotten all about his wife and daughter. Not literally, of course; but his feeling of loss is not a motivator anymore. Revenge may have been what got him into vigilantism, but it's not what keeping him in it. Remember the scene when Jack wonders why he's so cheerful, and Paul snaps that it beats being miserable forever? From this scene now with Patrolman Charles, we can see that he meant it! He really has moved on from his loss. I'll get into what I conclude from this later.
While Hank follows Paul, Ochoa uses the power of the badge to access Paul's suite. Ochoa rummages around and finds the bloody gauze from his stab wound, and the coffee table filled with all sorts of magazines and newspapers about the vigilante. Mild comic bit when Ochoa finds his own face on a cover of People. While Mid Brass of Humor play, Ochoa's disgusted expression turns of one of “Yeah, I gotta admit, I do look that ugly, don't I?”
Cut to a few days later at the District Attorney's office. Ochoa is summoned in from the waiting room by the D.A. and the police commisioner. Ochoa exposits that the blood sample from the gauze in Paul's apartment matches the blood on the knife that stabbed him in his latest attack. Still, he's only willing to say that Paul could be the suspect. I'm guessing that this is because blood-matching tech wasn't good enough back then to be as iron-clad conclusive as it is today (if in fact, it really is that good today, I dunno). Still, Ochoa is willing to hypothetically say that Paul's the suspect. The D.A. and the commish tell Ochoa that they don't want him. Ochoa looks baffled for an instant before giving a shrugged “Okay.”
The D.A.'s stats show that mugging has gone down almost 50% in the past week. I love that Ochoa can already guess what the stat is about before the D.A. recites it. I also love the smile and nod to himself he gives as the D.A. reads. I can see the thought balloon saying, “Yup. Knew it.” The D.A. doesn't want “Muggings Down 50%” to be a newspaper headline, because it would inspire copycats who might not be as selective as Paul. But he also doesn't want Paul arrested, because that would make him a martyr, brining unfavorable publicity onto the D.A.'s office, not to mention increasing the mugging rate again.
The commish simply wants Ochoa to make Paul desist. To vanish.
This makes sense, I think. If the nameless vigilante were to suddenly give up vigilantism, you'd think it would be a while before anyone who was terrified of vigilantes would feel comfortable about him not making an appearance for a while. Doubly so if there really are copycats. Brian Garfield's 1976 sequel, [b]Death Sentence[b], involves a copycat who nobody knows is not Paul.
What doesn't make sense to me is when Ochoa gives a derisive snort at the commish's echo of “Scare him off.” You used the phrase first, Ochoa! It's yours!
This scene is a pleasure to watch. As I said before, the Bumbling Cops cliché doesn't apply in this movie. Ochoa is a clever man. The Commish and D.A. are reasonable men whose motivations match up with their actions. Hell, you coulda make a good sequel with these characters without Paul Kersey! |
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Enda80
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
108 Posts |
Posted - 01/10/2010 : 09:02:43 AM
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"Months later, author Brian Garfield was walking home one evening and got mugged".
Actually, he went to a party, and somebody broke his windshield to take an old coat. He then had to drive home in a snowstorm.
Incidentally, I have e-mailed Mr. Garfield many times. I have decided to lay off, but I have to wonder if the Mack Bolan, the Executioner series might have influenced Garfield. After Bolan debuted in 1969, many other revenge on criminals for loss of loved ones series followed. I refer you to Brad Menegel's book Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction.
http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/23728/t/Revenge-origins-in-the-pulps-why-so-rare.html
Regarding revenge origins, I had forgotten how many of the "mystery men" such as the Spider and the Shadow had such piecemeal origins or negligible origins. Back then, origins received short shrift.
Doc Savage had a bit more backstory (and his father's death in the first novel makes him one of the earlier revenge origins arguably, but it seems Doc Savage had long decided to act as an adventurer long before then). Dick Tracy oddly had an origin (his fiancee's father's murder). I would have though that his status as an official policeman would have freed them from such explanations, but Gould's editor suggested a revenge origin.
Regarding revenge origins from before 1940, I found:
1931 Dick Tracy
1933 Doc Savage
1933 LR (and, by extension, the GH, since the brother of the LR that Butch Cavendish slew served as the grand-father of the GH)
1936 the Phantom (death of first Phantom)
1936 the Domino Lady (death of her father)
1939 the Avenger (his family died in a story resembling Flight Plan or So Long At the Fair) |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/12/2010 : 8:34:35 PM
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Thank you kindly for the correction, Nineff! And you know the history of revenge fiction better than I ever will. Other than The Shadow, I'm totally unfamiliar with any those you just mentioned. I have several cassette tapes of Shadow radio plays, collected 'em as a kid. Going from them, I never would've guessed that there was a revenge element at all. I got the sense that he was a rich guy who fought crime out of a combination of sense of justice and semi-sadistic lark.
Cut to Paul in his bathroom removing his blood-soaked shirt and applying gauze to his stabbed shoulder. Unremarkable other than Bronson not really seeming to be in much pain.
Cut to an Operating Room, where docs perform surgery on the thug who fled. A beat cop tells Inspector Ochoa that the thug said he had cut the vigilante; but just then a doc comes in from the O.R. to report that the patient cannot be saved, too much internal bleeding. He gives Ochoa the .32 slugs.
Cut to Paul's living room for a scene I like. Paul sits down in his robe to watch TV. There's a news story on about the latest vigilante homicide (btw, the word “vigilante” get used so much in this movie that typing this dissection has made me thoroughly sick of it). The anchorman says that the vigilante's actions, lawless as they are, are giving people new attitudes about street crime. An on-scene reporter introduces us to Mrs. Alma Lee Brown, a quintessential little old sassy black grandmother: Stoop-shouldered, scarf on her head, purse in hand, and charmingly tells us how she fended off a pair of purse-snatchers with a hat pin. She and her neighbors are proud of her spunk, although I think it would've been more effective if the movie didn't also show us her repelling them, because it just looks goofy as crap.
Then the reporter talks with a construction foreman, a burly man with a think New York accent. Foreman says that when one of his men noticed a mugging going on, the entire crew chased a purse-snatcher and “roughed him up a little.” We see this happen, too, and the crew stomps all the f**k over him. When asked about the disproportionately severe injuries, the foreman says in an uncaring who-me voice, “Poor guy must've fell down.”
Throughout this entire news clip, Paul is idly thumbing through one magazine after another, all with stories about him on the cover. Time, Harper's Weekly, etc. How ol' Stone-Face feels about it, I can't tell.
This scene is excellent because it serves to show us the indisputable ups and indisputable downs of vigilantism. Nobody in their right mind wouldn't root for Alma Lee Brown to stab somebody's eyes out, but nobody in their right mind would be comfortable with a construction crew using vigilantism as an excuse to go stompin' on folks. I imagine that plenty of post-movie discussions mentioned this scene probably more than any other non-action scene.
Cut to police HQ. The cops have identified which D'Agostino's Market the groceries on the subway came from. Olympia Dukakis is running down the numbers that the cops have compiled per Inspector Ochoa's instructions. Narrowing it down to within a 2 x 6-block distance from that market, there are only 14 men there who meet Ochoa's criteria (military veteran, family victimized by mugging). Institutional sexism! At no point does anybody mention the possibility of a female vigilante.
Brief talk of how Ochoa figures the vigilante to live near that market. Ochoa says that the first vigilante killing occurred 2 and a half blocks from D'Agostino's, so Ochoa is running with that being the vigilante's home neighborhood. Another cop points out that the vigilante was carrying the groceries on a subway five miles away. Ochoa counters that that must've been a lure; a guy with groceries has money on him, and hands occupied. Ochoa orders his force to do complete background checks on all the men they've narrowed it down to. It might seem like a bit of a leap for Ochoa to assume that the vigilante must live near D'Agostino's; but watching Ochoa, I get the sense that he knows damn well that it's a leap, but it's the best they have. His only possessions in custody are from D'Agostino's, and his first victim was in that neighborhood. In the absence of any other leads, run with it!
Cut to a dinner party for a 30-second scene that exists solely to give the audience some debate points about vigilantism. Most of it is stuff that the audience has likely already thought of, so this scene is pretty useless. At the end of it, a handsome elderly guy points at Paul and says, “He hasn't been the same since that terrible incident. **shrug** Coulda fooled me.
Cut to Ochoa meeting Hank, the half-man/half-mustache cop, in Hank's car outside of Paul's apartment building. Hank's tone of voice indicates that he has been going down the list of potential suspects and has now gotten to Paul. Ochoa is intruiged that Paul's wife and daughter were killed/raped by three men posing as delivery boys from the D'Agostino's Market, but notes that conscientious objectors make for unlikely vigilantes. Still, Hank has a man on site to keep an eye out, and it's Patrolman Joe Charles*, the same cop who met Paul at the hospital when and at the police station early in the movie.
* - I don't get the accent Hank puts on when he says “Patrolman Joe Charles.” And goddammit, Hank is ugly when he scowls!
Officer Charles greets Paul when Paul exits the building. The conversation is interesting:
Joe: “Good morning, Mr. Kersey....**awkward silence**....Joe Charles, Mr. Kersey.”
Paul: “Oh yes, of course.”
Joe: “How do you do? Good to see you again. How's your daughter?”
Paul: **shrug**....The same.”
Joe: “Take care.”
What makes this interesting is that this cop is Paul's contact with the investigation into who killed his wife, but he doesn't bother asking if any progress is being made, and indeed, he doesn't even recognize Patrolman Charles. This tells us that he hasn't been following up, which in turn indicates that he's pretty much forgotten all about his wife and daughter. Not literally, of course; but his feeling of loss is not a motivator anymore. Revenge may have been what got him into vigilantism, but it's not what keeping him in it. Remember the scene when Jack wonders why he's so cheerful, and Paul snaps that it beats being miserable forever? From this scene now with Patrolman Charles, we can see that he meant it! He really has moved on from his loss. I'll get into what I conclude from this later.
While Hank follows Paul, Ochoa uses the power of the badge to access Paul's suite. Ochoa rummages around and finds the bloody gauze from his stab wound, and the coffee table filled with all sorts of magazines and newspapers about the vigilante. Mild comic bit when Ochoa finds his own face on a cover of People. While Mid Brass of Humor play, Ochoa's disgusted expression turns of one of “Yeah, I gotta admit, I do look that ugly, don't I?”
Cut to a few days later at the District Attorney's office. Ochoa is summoned in from the waiting room by the D.A. and the police commisioner. Ochoa exposits that the blood sample from the gauze in Paul's apartment matches the blood on the knife that stabbed him in his latest attack. Still, he's only willing to say that Paul could be the suspect. I'm guessing that this is because blood-matching tech wasn't good enough back then to be as iron-clad conclusive as it is today (if in fact, it really is that good today, I dunno). Still, Ochoa is willing to hypothetically say that Paul's the suspect. The D.A. and the commish tell Ochoa that they don't want him. Ochoa looks baffled for an instant before giving a shrugged “Okay.”
The D.A.'s stats show that mugging has gone down almost 50% in the past week. I love that Ochoa can already guess what the stat is about before the D.A. recites it. I also love the smile and nod to himself he gives as the D.A. reads. I can see the thought balloon saying, “Yup. Knew it.” The D.A. doesn't want “Muggings Down 50%” to be a newspaper headline, because it would inspire copycats who might not be as selective as Paul. But he also doesn't want Paul arrested, because that would make him a martyr, brining unfavorable publicity onto the D.A.'s office, not to mention increasing the mugging rate again.
The commish simply wants Ochoa to make Paul desist. To vanish.
This makes sense, I think. If the nameless vigilante were to suddenly give up vigilantism, you'd think it would be a while before anyone who was terrified of vigilantes would feel comfortable about him not making an appearance for a while. Doubly so if there really are copycats. Brian Garfield's 1976 sequel, Death Sentence, explores that a bit.
What doesn't make sense to me is when Ochoa gives a derisive snort at the commish's echo of “Scare him off.” You used the phrase first, Ochoa! It's yours!
This scene is a pleasure to watch. As I said before, the Bumbling Cops cliché doesn't apply in this movie. Ochoa is a clever man. The Commish and D.A. are reasonable men whose motivations match up with their actions. Hell, you coulda make a good sequel with these characters without Paul Kersey!
Cut to night. In his office, Paul gets an anonymous phone call from Ochoa, who tells him simply that he's under police surveillance. Once again, Bronson shows no emotion about it, but he does lock his gun in an office cupboard. That same night, as he's leaving his office, he gets accosted by some uniformed cops who frisk him, check his ID, then release him, saying that they were looking for someone else who was supposedly armed. Before taking his leave, Paul notices Ochoa getting out of a car parked two slots down and leaning against it. That's the only real sloppy bit from Ochoa that I can think of. Why not just stay put in the car? The eye is drawn to movement, no reason to give Paul anything to notice. **shrug** Ochoa tells one of the cops that they did well, implying that this is another part of the “scare him off” operation.
Back at Paul's apartment, Ochoa and Hank are parked outside. Paul cautiously slips out the kitchen door exit (dig the 70s wall décor), down the stairs, and onto the street through a maintenance exit. While he's doing that, Ochoa tells Hank to go to the corner phone and call Paul's number to make sure he's still there. Hank finds that that phone has been ripped off its wires, so he scampers to find another one. Paul gets onto the sidewalk and recognizes Ochoa's car as the one he saw when the cops frisked him. Paul gets a deus ex machina when a group of costume-party goers go merrily sashaying past him. He gets past Ochoa's using the party-goers as a screen.
Brief comic bit as Hank finds a pay-phone in use and throws out the guy using it. Getting no answer from Paul's place, he dashes back to tell Ochoa, who tells Hank to stay put and peels out (noose in the background on the billboard).
Cut to Paul exiting a cabin front of his office building. He retrieves his gun from his office and leaves, bidding the watchman goodnight. He leaves through a side exit just seconds before Ochoa arrives. He asks the watchman if Paul has gone up yet, as is told that he went up and came right back down. Cut to Paul exiting a subway station in an unspecified part of town (“'New York' is about New York” on the billboard).
Ochoa returns to Paul's home, where Hank is still standing there. He asks Ochoa is Paul really is the “bird,” but Ochoa just tells him to go home. I know nothing about this sort of thing, but I don't see why Ochoa would not tell his own partner/subordinate for the night what the story is. **shrug**
Those last four paragraphs make that whole scene seem far more choppy than it really is. It's not choppy, it flows quite well.
Action Scene 6
On a huge outdoor stone staircase someplace, Paul is ambushed by three thugs. Two at the bottom of the staircase, and one at the top with a pistol of his own. After some taunting from the thugs (although I don't think street thugs pronounce “either” as “EYE-ther”), Paul blows the culturally errant “either”-pronouncer away (that'll teach him). He exchanges shots with the thug up top, sending that thug diving for cover. Paul chases the second remaining thug for a brief bit before blasting him to Kingdom Come as well. But the thug with the gun shoots Kersey from behind, hitting him in the right leg, although from the manner of his fall, it looked like he got hit in the shoulder.
That thug goes to the corpse of his...**shrug**....thugmate, I guess (I've use the word “thug” too much in this dissection) and ascertains that he is, in fact, cold oatmeal. He hears sirens approaching and begins to cautiously back away, as opposed to the more standard and time-honored practice of running full-speed. Kersey recovers his feet and fires a shot that hits the metal fence that's between him and thug. This finally gets him running full-speed (that'll teach him). Paul pursues with only a mild limp. Tough man.
Over police radio, Ochoa gets the call of shooting in progress, and peels out.
Thug flees into an industrial complex of some kind. From 1:25:40 to 1:25:42, there's Paul-POV shot of him fleeing, and he's just a speck. With all the directions the thug could go in, it's implausible that Paul, wounded leg and all, would be able to subsequently find him. Paul finds some wooden stairs, climbs up, and gazes around.
Incidentally, with this scene, Herbie Hancock is giving us a 6/8 time ostenado riff with the same kind of excellent 70s style swing/rock drumming that made Dirty Harry fun, a piano giving a staccato D on the downstroke of every measure (Open Office.org Writer doesn't recognize the word “downstroke,” can you believe it?), and electronic keyboard free-stylin' away. I didn't notice it 'til about the 12th or so viewing, but now that I have, it's stuck. Groovin'!
Thug hears sirens approaching and again begins to panic-slowly back away. Run, you clod! But he's too late! Paul has got the drop on him! Paul announces his own presence with a simple “Hey!” He tells the thug to “Fill your hand.” I had to turn on the subtitles for that, because I heard it as “Feel your hand.” The thug doesn't get it any more than I do, so Paul, close to passing out, husks “Draaaw!” Then Paul collapses and the thug takes off.
With “Draaaw!” it's official: Paul Kersey has lost his mind. Whether this was all a Wild West shoot-em-up to him all along, or just now that he's losing consciousness and might die of blood loss, he's now figured that he's dead/captured, so he's gonna go out in a blaze of glory. It's odd, because while what he saw in Tucson definitely did leave an impression on him, there was no indication that he was really getting into the Wild West groove (how did Wild West gunslingers feel about shooting folks in the back when they're already down?).
Cut to cops arriving. They push back the press, and Ochoa finds patrolman Reilly (Christopher Guest. Neat.) who was first on-scene. Reilly didn't anything from Paul except his address.....and his gun. Reilly tells Ochoa that he hasn't yet entered it in his report, as he was “waiting for instructions.” and Ochoa tells him to forget he ever saw it. Interesting. Even the beat cops aren't entirely displeased about a vigilante.
Cut to Arthur C. Logan Memorial Hospital. This was a real hospital that no longer exists. From the look of the place, I'm not surprised. I work for a California county-run hospital that looks better than this place. Ochoa arrives, ignores the press who shout questions at him, and gets into Paul's room.
He tells Paul that it'd be easier if Paul would just die, but since that ain't gonna happen, Ochoa makes Paul an offer: “Get a transfer to another city....and I'll drop this gun in the river.” Without getting answer, or even an indication that Paul is listening okay (he even asks Paul that twice), Ochoa gets up to leave. Paul croaks, “Inspector.....by sundown?” I can't tell if he's having an in-joke with himself, or if he's still in fantasy-land. Ochoa seems to figure the latter.
Outside, Ochoa tells the crushing horde of the press that the patient is just another mugging victim and that the vigilante is still at large. Gotta wonder. You can't tell me that there wouldn't at least some cops, including higher-ups, who would be furious about the flack they're gonna get when they get lambasted in the press for letting the vigilante disappear without catching him. I hope Reilly knows how to keep his mouth shut. Imagine if it got out that the cops had him and deliberate let him go. Then imagine that it came out that the D.A. was in on it the whole time. In fairness, Death Wish II thought about this, and covered it well. In that movie, it's explicitly stated that Ochoa goes to Los Angeles on the his own time, not on police business. Still, given what happens to him in L.A. on his own time, the whole story could be reopened after all those years by an enterprising journalist.
For what it's worth, a lot could happen in the span between Ochoa's offer and Paul actually leaving New York. First he's gotta convalesce, then he's gotta put in for transfer, then the transfer has to be approved, then he's gotta pack up and all.....**shrug**......there's plenty of time for Paul to bag one more for the road.
Quick shot of an Amtrak train speeding through flatland, then a shot of Union Station. To be helpful, a Chicago Tribune delivery truck pulls up right in front of the camera. Then a shot from inside Union Square Station, with a sign in the foreground reading, “CHICAGO see the SEARS TOWER.” Okay, we get it, it's Chicago!
But let's give 'em a break, what else are they gonna promote? “See the Cubs get splattered all over Creation again” or “See the White Sox blow another one, because nobody else is?' The same for the Bears and Bulls. Only the Blackhawks were competitive, and it sucks to admit, but let's face it, America just ain't into hockey that much, and certainly wasn't in the 70s. So in this movie's time period (mid-70s), four out of five Chicago sports teams sucked unholy, and the one that didn't was the one who not many folks cared about anyway. What else should the city promote, then?
Paul is greeted by a what I'm guessing is a new co-worker or employer, who tells Paul that his apartment is all ready, his office is all ready, and there's a lovely golf course. Corporate as can be. Paul ain't listening, though, because he's watching a group of five flamboyantly-dressed goons molest a pretty young lady (if I ever dissect Death Wish II, that's what I'll call 'em: Goons). Knocking her bags out of her hands, having a ball. Paul excuses himself, and helps the lady pick up her bags. Given that she's a pretty young lady, and that the station is quite crowded, I'd think at least a dozen men would already beat Paul to it. Doesn't happen, though. Props, though, for Paul still having a bit of a limp when he walks.
The goons notice Paul being the Boy Scout and jeer at him. As an ominous keyboard plays, Paul grins rather wickedly and aims his thumb-and-index-finger pistol at them. He holds that position for eight seconds. Freeze the DVD there. He looks pretty evil, doesn't he?
The screen cuts to black. Roll credits over the Love Theme.
I love that ending. Problem is, it's the ending to a different movie. The implication here is that Paul is going to continue in Chicago precisely what he was doing in New York. But the movie has been wanting us to root for him in New York. So why is it being portrayed as ominous? I also don't think the Love Theme is the appropriate song for the end credits. As I mentioned before, love, or the loss of it, is not what's driving Paul after he gets his vigilante stride.....
AFTERTHOUGHTS
…...and goes straight to what I've been building up to that I kept saying I'd get to later:
This is not a revenge story. It's an addiction story. Paul has found a hobby that gives him a high, and that's all he cares about. He's gleefulness in Jack's last scene, his unrecognition of Joe Charles and then not asking him a thing about the investigation, his slinking out to score another kill even though he knows damn well the cops are right outside his place watching for him to do just that, and then the final image that hints that he's gonna start right back up in Chicago. Paul is a vigilantism addict. Whether the movie knew it or not, that's how it comes off to me. The pistol in his office that he doesn't want anybody to see may as well be primo cocaine. And he gets hooked rather quickly. After vomiting over his first kill, he's got the hang of it from there on in.
That actually hurts the character arc, turning it into a stair-step. From peaceful loving husband to curious about self-defense to full-blown stone-cold vigilante. Allow me to tinker with each action scene to give Paul a more graceful arc:
Action Scene 1: No change.
Action Scene 2: No change, including the barf afterwards.
Action Scene 3: Instead of him staring at the mugging with no expression, have him physically fidget a bit like Roy Scheider before retrieving the burnt corpse in Jaws 2, maybe look up and down the street as if wondering if someone else might help out; something to show through body language that he knows that he could just keep going and pretend he didn't see it, but he just can't let someone suffer like that.
Action Scene 4: Insert a legitimate reason for him being on the train instead of the hints that he's actively looking for someone to kill. Have him be anything but calm about shooting the one guy twice, like he's so angry he just can't help himself.
Action Scene 5: No change, including calmly shooting the one guy twice.
Action Scene 6: No change.
There. Granted, there could be a dozen or more holes in what I've just come up with, and you're welcome to throw cyberfruit at me for it if you like. But these changes would create a graceful descent into becoming a totally different character than he was at the beginning. And it would necessitate only two or three sentences of extra dialogue.
Still, stair-step arc is more interesting to me that what Dirty Harry offers, which is a character who is, to borrow one of Ken's phrases from his Jaws 2 piece, “established, not introduced.” Harry Callahan is the same guy at the end as he is at the start. Nothing he experiences in the movie changes how he thinks or feels about anything. When he expresses his disgust at Miranda Rights and all that, you get the sense that he's felt this way all along. I'll take a character who is introduced and then changes in abrupt increments over an established character any day. On top of that, the stair-step arc does not disqualify a movie from excellence. First Blood (which I wrote six pages of a dissection for before giving up and choosing this one) and Mad Max both do the same, as well.
First Blood:
Shy But Harmless Rambo get arrested; turns into Fighter and Survivalist Rambo, returns to town and becomes Out of His Mind Doing Survivally-Counterproductive Stuff Rambo.
Mad Max:
Happy Ace Driver Max loses his partner; becomes Retired and Loving Max, loses wife and becomes Terminal Crazy Max.
So it ain't that bad that Death Wish does the same. Except, as I've demonstrated, it would've been easy not to.
Lastly, I'm gonna reference Zack Handlen one more time: He says the Charles Bronson was miscast for this role precisely because it lessens the shock of a peaceful man turning into RoboCivilian. “Starring Charles Bronson” pretty much guarantees plenty of violence, so there's no surprise or disappointment when it happens. He's correct, although I read that before seeing the movie, so I can't say at all whether or not I would've noticed it.
BOTTOM LINE
I love this movie. It's one of my background audio movies, and it's good fun to pay attention to, as well. If the urban crime in '74 was as bad is it's been made out to be, there's absolutely no surprise at all that it resonated as well as it did. I'm the only guy I know who finds Death Wish superior to Dirty Harry. I attribute this mostly to the former's lack of quotable dialogue, Harry Callahan's likable assholishness (likable because he ain't doin' it to us), and Clint Eastwood's more lasting and contemporary clout. I don't hate Dirty Harry, far from it, it's a blast to watch, too! I just hate that no one else seems to find Death Wish to be an equal or better blast.
Death Wish is not perfect. Bronson's miscast uber-calm, and a character arc that could've been much more graceful than it was, keep me from calling this a Great Movie. Still, for what it has to offer, it's VERY hard to beat!
End of dissection. Thank you. |
Edited by - Food on 01/12/2010 8:37:03 PM |
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Enda80
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
108 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2010 : 6:55:00 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Food
Thank you kindly for the correction, Nineff! And you know the history of revenge fiction better than I ever will. Other than The Shadow, I'm totally unfamiliar with any those you just mentioned. I have several cassette tapes of Shadow radio plays, collected 'em as a kid. Going from them, I never would've guessed that there was a revenge element at all. I got the sense that he was a rich guy who fought crime out of a combination of sense of justice and semi-sadistic lark.
End of dissection. Thank you.
You missed my point. The Shadow and the Spider did *not* have the sort of straightforward revenge origins that we expect today. The other characters that I mentioned did (Dick Tracy, the Domino Lady, the Avenger, and so forth). With the Shadow and the Spider, the authors just introduced them full-tilt. I found it interesting that they did not introduce the Shadow and the Spider with full-blown origins the way we today would expect writers to do so.
(Walter Gibson early on hinted that the Shadow had a disfigured face, but he did not fully follow up on this. He did reveal the Shadow's ture identity as not actually Lamont Cranston but rather Kent Allard, an aviator who faked his death.) |
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Enda80
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
108 Posts |
Posted - 01/14/2010 : 7:26:46 PM
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"Since this vigilante is good with guns, he wants the cops to narrow it to anyone living in who served in wartime, starting with Vietnam (�they're youngest and toughest�) and working back to WWII".
Looking back, I see that the police in Death Wish had their genre saviness trip them up. Remember how they checked out Vietnam veterans first, thinking the vigilante might lie amongst them? Of course, the vigilante (Paul Kersey) turned out as a conscientious objector. I can just imagine the brain-storming session that led them to seek out Vietnam veterans: "Okay, so far, based on the cases of the the Executioner, the Marksman, the Assasin, the Revenger, the Sharpshooter, the Lone Wolf, the Avenger, the Penetrator, and the dozen plus other aggressors out there, this guy served in the Vietnam war. Get out the thesaurus, we'll figure out what codename he'll use in twenty minutes; too bad for him most of the good codenames already stand as claimed". (Some films using this idea include Gordon's War, Steele Justice, Kill Squad, the Exterminator, the Annihilators, etc.).
(In Brian Garfield's novel, a psychologist guesses that the vigilante must have held progressive views prior to his or her turn to vigilantism. He reasons this since this person works alone, he or she must not have any sympathetic friends or acquaintances to help him or her. Also, more conservative people tend to have stronger organizational mindsets and discipline.)
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Enda80
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
108 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2010 : 04:37:05 AM
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| Some other early urban vigilante films; I, the Jury (1953) and The Saint in New York (1938). Note that Death Wish 4 copied the plot of The Saint in New York. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2010 : 09:47:45 AM
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| I haven't seen Death Wish 4 or 5. I thought the second was dull, and Bronson's throwing out one-liners was off-putting. The third, as Ken already described for us, is gloriously awful. |
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Enda80
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
108 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2010 : 10:42:08 AM
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One thing that would have helped the story as a series would have entailed having the vigilante as younger and a Vietnam veteran, as other films such as Zebra Force (1976) and perhaps Delirium (1979) did, as well as the various paperback original adventure novel series I mentioned (do you think I made all those names up?).
Dino Di Laurentinis never intended to make a sequel to Death Wish (despite his reputation for exploitation, he rarely made
sequels; a different production crew made the DW sequels). Of course,
when the Death Wish film sequels arrived, many people found it
incongruous that this "bleeding heart" from about a decade ago now used
a wide variety of weapons and could defend himself in hand-to-hand
combat. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2010 : 11:25:34 PM
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I finally got around to watching Death Wish 4 and 5 tonight. I had never seen either one. I was curious about them because Ken mentioned in his Death Wish 3 dissection that "the last film in the series, Death Wish 5, is probably the second best of the lot, after the first film." I gotta say, my impression is the precise opposite. I found Death Wish 5 to be ass-pamphlets.
There are some good things about it, like the grimy 70s-style vasaline-on-the-lens look of everything; Paul Kersey sticking to a simple handgun rather than heavy weaponry; Bronson still being able to run at age 73; a very nice and somber/moody theme song, and best of all, early in the movie, Paul is conflicted about his own return to vigilantism.
But the movie's attempts to get into the violence ascetic of the period (increasingly imaginative methods of death), Paul throwing out pre- and post-kill one-liners, horrible sound editing (especially in the opening scene in the factory, I couldn't catch a word they were saying!), and the whiplash-abrupt ending left me wishing that this had been an earlier sequel so one of the others could've been the last. It just felt unhappy to see both the franchise and Bronson's career as a starring actor end like this.
Additional nit: Since I couldn't hear half of what was being said, I tried to turn on the subtitles, only to find that the DVD doesn't have English subtitles. It has subtitles in French and Spanish, but not Eng-motherf**kin'-lish!!! Whose decision was THAT?!? |
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Enda80
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
108 Posts |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2010 : 10:30:14 PM
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I just watched the latest Michael Caine movie, Harry Brown, tonight. It's pretty much a British Death Wish, and it's not bad at all! There are a couple things in there that likely wouldn't fly in an American movie.
Gotta say though, the movie likely holds the record for smallest font size of the credits. I couldn't read a damn word in either opening or closing credits. |
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Death Wish (1974) in increments.
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