Drifting as far from Michael Winner’s original and interesting 1974 Death Wish as possible, this belated sequel in an often ugly series is nevertheless a harmless, fairly conventional thriller featuring a watchable cast. After his life of loss and misery at the hands of criminals, vigilante Paul Kersey is ready to settle down in romantic bliss with a fashion designer named Olivia (Lesley-Anne Down). Unfortunately, the lady happens to be the target of her mobster ex-husband (Michael Parks), who has a tight grip on New York’s garment district. Disfigured and finally murdered by her former spouse, Olivia is avenged in very creative ways by Paul, who resorts to such esoterica as using a remote-controlled soccer ball to deliver an explosive punishment. Bronson largely phones it in for this potboiler, though even in the winter of his life he can look quite compelling in his stoic way. Helping to keep things interesting is Parks’s kinky cruelty and Saul Rubinek’s vaguely bemused performance as a well-meaning prosecutor. –Tom Keogh
Action superstar Charles Bronson (Death Wish, Breakheart Pass) is at his two-fisted best in this gritty, action-packed thriller about a cop hellbent on wiping out a vicious child prostitution ring. Lt. Crowe (Bronson) is a veteran LA vice cop who nearly goes berserk after his young daughter is molested by an unidentified Asian man. As he battles his own racial prejudices and feelings of rage, Crowe is ordered to hunt down a brutal pimp who has kidnapped the daughter of a Japanese businessman. Hindered by police force superiors, Crowe is pushed into a personal war of vengeance, pitting himself against a savage urban empire of drugs and sexual depravity.
The streets are filled with death and destruction. Ruthless drug traffickers prey upon the poor, the lonely, the helpless. L.A. is a city desperate for deliverance until now! Charles Bronson returns as Paul Kersey, the original urban vigilante and one-man demolition force in this pulse-pounding, take-no-prisoners thriller! Two rival drug gangs have a death-grip on L.A.’s battle-torn inner city. But their brutal reign of terror is about to come to a violent end. One man is out to avenge the cocaine-induced death of his girlfriend’s teenage daughter. His name is Paul Kerseyand he’s armed, dangerous and mad as hell!
Hard-hitting action, cross-country adventure and a government conspiracy that goes all the way to the top! In this pulse-pounding political thriller, action superstar Charles Bronson is at his ruggedbest as a man on a mission to protect the First Lady from ruthless assassins who’ll stop at nothingto kill her! When veteran Secret Service Agent Jay Killian (Bronson) is assigned to protect the president’s pampered and difficult wife (Jill Ireland), he knows she will be a handful. But what he doesn’t know is that assassins are out to kill her! Not only must Killian use his lethal experience to shield the First Lady from danger he must also do it while tracing her would-be murderer to the highest office in the land!
This thoroughly unpleasant 1986 thriller stars Charles Bronson as a cop systematically framed for one murder after another. The killings, though, turn out to be the work of a female nutcase (Carrie Snodgress) he had once sent away to prison. Everyone involved in this leans on the atrocity-and-revenge formula, particularly Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone), two Hollywood guys who once upon a time made plenty of classic films. Snodgress’s performance is unhinged, interesting but hard to watch, as we never really got to know her onscreen after Diary of a Mad Housewife. Just think of this movie as having come from the same creepy planet as the Death Wish series. –Tom Keogh
Paul Kersey doesn’t seek out violence. It just seems to find him. But when it does he’s not about to back down! Charles Bronson brings out the heavy artillery in this gun-blazing, no-holds-barred thriller! Road-worn and battle-weary, Kersey longs to leave his fighting days behind him. Butwhen he arrives in New York to visit an old friend, he finds him brutally attacked and gasping for breath in a pool of blood! Now the silent avenger must wage war once more on the city’s punks, thugsand hoodlums. But this time he’s brought a small arsenal of guns, knivesand even a bazookato help him!
BRONSON is back and tougher than ever in this high-voltage action thriller. When a Latin American journalist is brutally murdered, professional killer Bronson comes out of retirement to investigate. His assignment is to rein in the notorious sadist Dr. Molloch, head of a government sanctioned torture facility. In a deadly game of cat and mouse the unstoppable Bronson begins by eliminating the doctor’s bodyguards one by one. He then abducts Molloch’s beloved sister, attempting to lure him out of his prison stronghold. But Molloch has friends in high places, where a trail of corruption leads all the way to the US Embassy. 90 minutes, Anamorphic Widescreen (Aspect Ratio 1.85:1), Includes Original Theatrical Trailer.
Charles Bronson is “a hero all the way” (Variety) as a rogue cop pursuing a deranged killer in this action-packed suspense thriller. Serving up vigilante justice as only he can, Bronson delivers one of his most riveting performances in this “exceedingly well-made” (Gene Siskel) film. Bronson plays Leo Kessler, a cynical Los Angeles cop on the trail of Warren Stacey (Gene Davis), a homicidal maniac who turns rejection from beautiful women into the ultimate revenge. When the legal system sets Stacey free, Kessler plants evidence to put him behind bars for good. But Kessler’s plan backfires, leaving him with only one option: to hunt down Stacey on his own…before the crazed killer strikes again!
Paul Kersey is not your ordinary victim: He fights back – with a vengeance! Legendary tough guy Charles Bronson resumes his trademark role as the hard-as-nails urban avenger in this hard-hitting, action-packed sequel! With the murder of his wife and the revenge against her killers now behind him, Kersey begins a new life in L.A. But tragedy is never far from his door, and when a group of local hoods viciously assaults his daughter, they unleash a wrath unlike anything the city has ever seen. Kersey has the face of each of them branded in his memory, and he will not rest until he tracks every one of them down…and puts them all in the ground!
The movie DEATH HUNT turns history on its head, but in doing so it manages to deliver an entertaining movie that details the determination of two men in a manhunt across the Canadian tundra.
Directed by James Bond veteran Peter Hunt, who after working as an editor on the first few 007 pictures was promoted to director of the fan favorite ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE and went on to direct such classics as GOLD and SHOUT AT THE DEVIL.
The movie DEATH HUNT provides Hunt the opportunity to reteam with his SHOUT AT THE DEVIL star Lee Marvin. Marvin plays a world-weary Canadian Mountie who is obligated (I use that word because Marvin’s character seems to feel some sympathy for his quarry) to bring in a trapper (played by a quiet brooding Charles Bronsan) who is being harassed by some local thugs.
The execution of this story is excellent, the acting first-rate and the shots of the Yukon breathtaking. Where this movie does falter is in purporting to tell history by tying in the story of the Mad Trapper of Rat River into the fabric of the story – and in doing so unraveling all the history books tell us about the real incident.