Death Wish | Little White Lies

Death Wish

05 Apr 2018 / Released: 06 Apr 2018

Words by Elena Lazic

Directed by Eli Roth

Starring Bruce Willis

A bald man in a black leather jacket holding a gun and aiming it at the camera.
A bald man in a black leather jacket holding a gun and aiming it at the camera.
3

Anticipation.

Eli Roth can be interesting, and the original film is pretty good.

2

Enjoyment.

Infuriatingly bland.

1

In Retrospect.

Just watch the original instead.

Eli Roth and Bruce Willis com­bine forces for a frus­trat­ing­ly bland remake of Michael Winner’s vig­i­lante classic.

For seem­ing­ly pro­mot­ing ret­ribu­tive vio­lence, vig­i­lan­tism and the right to bear arms, the con­tro­ver­sial Charles Bron­son-front­ed Death Wish fran­chise holds a neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion it undoubt­ed­ly deserves. Look­ing back at the series now, per­haps the more severe judge­ment should be reserved for the car­toon­ish and reac­tionary pol­i­tics of parts two through five than the moral­ly ambigu­ous original.

The sequels, made in quick suc­ces­sion eight years after the box office suc­cess of Michael Winner’s 1974 effort, were pro­duced by Can­non Films, then owned by icon­ic B‑movie pro­duc­ers Mena­hem Golan and Yoram Globus. The Israeli cousins tapped into the 80s demand for bru­tal bar­gain base­ment action with an unusu­al busi­ness mod­el: at film mar­kets, they would rely on their leg­endary sales­man­ship skills and beau­ti­ful­ly designed pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als to pre-sell films which often only had a title, basic con­cept and star attached. Mon­ey gen­er­at­ed from pre-sales was then used to finance the actu­al pro­duc­tion of the films them­selves, and the end result invari­ably favoured spec­ta­cle over substance.

By con­trast Winner’s film was a Hol­ly­wood affair, penned by Anato­my of a Mur­der screen­writer Wen­dell Mayes, and adapt­ed from a pop­u­lar source nov­el. For all its faults, the orig­i­nal Death Wish still man­ages to rise above the mind­less thrill and unavoid­able medi­oc­rity of its sequels, the melan­choly of the film shin­ing through despite Charles Bronson’s ten­den­cy to mis­take total still­ness for grav­i­ty. Although Bronson’s venge­ful Paul Kersey is freed by the police at the end of the film, his mur­der­ous spree is framed as the down­ward spi­ral of a griev­ing man, rather than the badass solu­tion to society’s ills.

With this con­text in mind, the prospect of a Death Wish remake at a time when the issue of gun vio­lence in Amer­i­ca seems to have come to a head may seem a lit­tle less insen­si­tive than it did at first glance. And with Eli Roth at the helm we might even have hoped for a cri­tique of male enti­tle­ment in a soci­ety gone mad, some­thing akin to the moral dark­ness and bit­ing satire of his ear­li­er Hos­tel films. Yet regard­less of whether the radio and TV debates which punc­tu­ate the film are intend­ed as a com­ment on the media’s blood­thirsty exploita­tion of tragedy or a real­is­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of how these types of sit­u­a­tions unfold, the lack of any real insight makes for a frus­trat­ing view­ing experience.

Although it mer­ci­ful­ly omits the rape of Kersey’s daugh­ter and the queasy rep­re­sen­ta­tion of her boyfriend – a weak’ man who relies on Kersey for every­thing and even calls him dad’, much to the latter’s cha­grin – Roth’s film also strips away the ratio­nal’ moti­va­tion behind Kersey’s ensu­ing ram­page. In Winner’s film, Bronson’s Kersey acts out of grief, quick­ly get­ting a taste for killing bad’ guys. Her­bie Hancock’s beau­ti­ful, melan­choly score height­ens the per­va­sive sense of tragedy, and by the end of the film we empathise with a bro­ken man in des­per­ate need of psy­chi­atric help. Willis’ Kersey, mean­while, isn’t moti­vat­ed by rage but by the real­i­sa­tion that he is able get away with mur­der, along with the belief that this is the best and indeed only way to clean up the streets.

As such – and as dif­fi­cult as this may be to imag­ine – Willis’ take on the char­ac­ter is much limper than Bronson’s; his Kersey allows him­self to be car­ried away by events instead of fac­ing them head on. The film is slug­gish­ly paced too, half-heart­ed­ly sid­ing with its sup­pos­ed­ly rea­son­able anti-hero instead of adopt­ing a deci­sive point of view. The sim­plis­tic log­ic with which Kersey sly­ly jus­ti­fies acquir­ing weapons and attack­ing peo­ple could have been amus­ing and inci­sive. At best it calls for a know­ing smirk.

Despite the con­tro­ver­sy it has stirred State­side, Death Wish isn’t real­ly worth get­ting angry about. Far from the irre­spon­si­ble, pro-gun pro­pa­gan­da we were warned against, Roth has deliv­ered a bland and unfo­cused film – a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty more than any­thing else.

Death Wish - Official UK Trailer - In Cinemas 6 April

Death Wish - Official UK Trailer - In Cinemas 6 April

Bruce Willis is back on the big screen as Dr Paul Kersey, who is serving a large dose of revenge...After his family is violently attacked by a gang of masked...

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