Film review: Death Wish (2018)

Back in 1974, Charles Bronson was cast in “Death Wish” as Paul Kersey, a peace loving architect who minded his own business until his wife and daughter were raped and brutally beaten (his wife died, his daughter survived but in a catatonic state). With anger simmering within him, he goes to work on a project down south, is introduced to the gun culture, and masters his firearm quickly. He then proceeds to gun down various bad guys in western vigilante fashion, and the police aren’t in too big a hurry to find him and stop him. The film was an unlikely success, and spawned several sequels during the 1980s when such attitudes were somewhat more popular.

Now, 44 years after the original film, Bruce Willis is dusted off to play the Kersey role in a remake that offers cell phone cameras, social media videos, and other technological excesses that the original was without. And unlike Bronson’s angry loner, the Willis version of Kersey has a brother, and a daughter who eventually recovers. Finally, while Bronson never does find the random thrill killers that committed the original crime, they are Bruce’s target.

Much more sanitized and far less interesting, this new “Death Wish” spends time with unnecessary character development, plot exposition, and central character introspection that forces too much thought in the mind of one who is supposed to be acting out of passionate impulse. Willis still knows how to work his angry frown, tight-lipped squint, and hushed delivery when blowing away drug dealers and small time crooks. But he no longer owns the frame, doesn’t have the same strength and charisma he was able to project some 30 years ago.

There are a few good isolated scenes that offer the sort of violent action that made the original movie a bluntly visceral success. But Charles Bronson plays a man alone, nothing left to lose, whose chances are dangerous and daring. Bruce Willis portrays a family man settling a score. Changing the character from an architect to a surgeon must have sounded good on paper at the production board meeting.

The film ends exactly as the other, with the Kersey character pointing a gun-like finger at a run-of-the-mill baddie This opens up the prospect for possible sequels. But it is unlikely the box office netted by this production will warrant any further efforts.

It should be noted that the original novel, by Brian Garfield, presented vigilantism not as a solution, but as another problem. The author had his name removed from the Charles Bronson movie that redirected his original concept. Garfield is still living. One wonders what he might think of this latest screen version.