Paul Magne Haakonsen I do remember watching "Death Wish" back in my childhood in the 1980s, and remembering that Charles Bronson seemed to be a cool guy in the movie. Then I got a chance to revisit the franchise many, many years later and of course I did sit down to watch the movies again.I have to honestly state that this is a very slow paced movie. "Death Wish" is based on a very good concept though, and it had lots of potential for taking the character Paul Kersey and evolve on him. And I said it had potential to do so, but it failed to do so.The blood in the "Death Wish" movie was painstakingly and obviously just brightly colored paint, as it looked so fake it would even make a blind person go "wait a minute!"It had a very predictable storyline, and you knew the outcome of the movie from the very beginning, which was a shame because director and writer Michael Winner didn't offer much to challenge the intellect of the audience.It was fun to see a young Jeff Goldblum as a hoodlum in this movie.Why this movie spawned a 2018 remake is beyond me, because it is adequate enough as it was.

Jithin K Mohan Disgusting piece of right wing anti hippy pro-gun propaganda that is also showing its age even though not badly made for its time. I can totally see why the remake is getting bad reviews. This kind of subject treatment and the public response to it shows why many Americans look screwed up from an outside POV.

rodrig58 A perfect role for Charles Bronson. And an excellent Vincent Gardenia, in the role of Frank Ochoa, who made me think of Inspector Javert of the "Les Miserables". A very young and persuasive Jeff Goldblum in a role of rapist, one of the three at the beginning of the film. All the other actors-robbers are convincing. I've seen the movie several times at long intervals. Every time I liked it. Because it is well done and resists the proof of time. The scene of the cemetery in the wintertime reminded me of the time when I visited the tomb of the director, Michael Winner, in London. Herbie Hancock signs good music, close to the Lalo Schifrin style. Hope Lange, in the small role of the wife, was very good.

Red-Barracuda In the 1970's the American western died out as a functioning genre. It's settings and stories no longer spoke to audiences in ways that felt relevant enough for them. In its place came the crime movie, which spoke to people about their contemporary fears and took place within the backdrop of the urban towns and cities in which they lived. I don't think it is an accident that there is a sequence in Death Wish where Charles Bronson's character travels to a western settlement and learns there that the lessons of the wild west gunfighter had to be brought back to his crime infested home town of New York City. In fact, you could argue that the star and director of Death Wish, Bronson and Michael Winner, had already made a western two years earlier which tapped into very similar territory - Chato's Land (1972) featured Bronson as a Native American taking extended vengeance against a group of men who had raped his wife and murdered his family. Like another hugely popular 70's crime movie Dirty Harry (1971), Death Wish tapped into a public mood which was fed up of rampant crime and liberal justice. But while Dirty Harry was controversial in its depiction of police brutality, Death Wish was if anything even more so in that it actively supported the idea of citizens going out and killing criminals. Both films are, or course, supremely politically incorrect; and naturally even more entertaining to watch because of this.The story follows a liberal architect from New York whose life and attitudes are turned upside down when his wife is murdered and his daughter raped by a trio of thugs. The police prove inefficient so he arms himself and set about cleaning the streets up of any undesirables he can find. The general public cheer him on and are encouraged to fight back against criminals. The crime epidemic that New York suffered back in those days is a cause of the popularity of this movie and of the cycle of vigilante films in general. Bronson even began to be typecast in this specific bracket of violent crime fayre. But this must surely be the best of the sub-genre. It doesn't pull its punches with a very disturbing house invasion sequence which makes for grim viewing. Interestingly, the criminals involved in this are neither caught nor ever seen again. I highly suspect that if such a movie were made today they would be made to be shown getting their just deserts but it is to Death Wish's credit that it does not choose to play things so easily with the audience and indicates that sometimes those who commit atrocious acts get off scot-free. Bronson's character is then shown to me more clearly at war with the whole criminal underbelly as opposed to be out specifically seeking revenge. The night-time scenes of him wandering the streets encountering all manner of violent criminals are both sinister and almost slightly surreal (after all there does seem to be brutal thugs around every corner of this city!). These sequences are well shot and the city of New York is a major character in this movie, it really truly had mean streets in those days.This grim, controversial film remains a thrilling watch partially because it is a well-paced and very direct crime-thriller but also because it is the kind of thing we just don't see very much of these days any more. Films actively encouraging vigilante violence and homicide are seen as being out-of-order now. Some people tend to quite easily forget that the movies are intended for thrills and not actually text books in how to live your life.