Death Wish V: The Face of Death

Dir: Allan A. Goldstein

1994

****

I’m not sure anyone expected that there would be a fifth Death Wish film but somehow, seven years later, there was. The three previous films in the Death Wish series were produced by Cannon Films but in 1989 Cannon faced bankruptcy and its financial records came under investigation. Co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus also had an infamous personal falling out during the collapse of their company. Golan soon launched his own company, 21st Century Film Corporation whereby each film tended to have small budgets and performed poorly at the box office, much like Cannon. Meanwhile, the Death Wish films continued to enjoy popularity in the video and television market. Golan came up with the idea of a fifth Death Wish film to serve as a much-needed hit for the company. It was a box-office disaster. People didn’t go to the cinema to watch Death Wish films, they rented them on VHS, after all those years Golan still didn’t grasp this. Financing to start the film production was secured through a loan from the Lewis Horwitz Organization. Golan still owned an unused screenplay for a Death Wish film, submitted in the late 1980s by J. Lee Thompson and Gail Morgan Hickman but he decided against using it, since it would be too costly to produce. Instead, he hired Michael Colleary to write a new script. Colleary would go on to write Face/Off and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Golan initially reserved directorial duties for himself but his preoccupation with directing Crime and Punishment reportedly prevented him from doing so. Michael Winner was available to direct, but was never asked to do so. According to Winner, his lack of interest in directing Death Wish 4: The Crackdown may have led Golan to count him out. Golan then hired Steve Carver for the job, an experienced director in the action film genre. Carver recalled discussing with Bronson over the depiction of Paul Kersey. Bronson wanted the character to become more sympathetic and less violent. Carver and screenwriter Stephen Peters started co-operating in revising the script. Carver worked on pre-production for two months before Golan decided to replace him. His replacement was Allan A. Goldstein, who himself was surprised at the offer, since he specialized in drama films. Death Wish V was his first action film, he hadn’t seen the previous films, and when revising the script he decided that what the series needed was more humor and black comedy elements. Bronson and Golan were not on speaking terms during the filming, only communicating by using Goldstein as an intermediary. Goldstein has since said he was uncertain of the reasons behind this adversarial relationship but then Golan wasn’t around during filming, so escaped the drama that the crew of the first four films had to endure. To be absolutely clear, it’s a terrible film, but it does have certain points that I really enjoyed. Firstly, there aren’t any gratuitous rape scenes. A strange thing to say when talking about any other film outside of the Death Wish franchise. Secondly, it has a really great villain thanks to the great Michael Parks. Paul Kersey (Bronson) returns to New York City, having assumed the name Paul Stewart under the witness protection program. He is invited by girlfriend and designer Olivia Regent (Lesley-Anne Down) to a particularly 80s fashion show (in the mid-90s). Backstage, mobster Tommy O'Shea (Parks) and his goons muscle in. Tommy threatens Olivia, who is his ex-wife and mother to their daughter Chelsea (Erica Lancaster), over money he has invested in her business. Olivia later informs Paul of her ex-husband's behavior after he finds bruises on her hand. Paul confronts him, but Tommy's henchman Chicki Paconi (Kevin Lund) pulls out a revolver at Paul. The confrontation ends with the arrival of Chelsea. D.A. Brian Hoyle (Saul Rubinek – who played a thug in the first Death Wish movie) and his associate detective Lt. Hector Vasquez (Miguel Sandoval) visit Paul's home. He informs them about Tommy O'Shea. Hoyle says they have been trying to nab Tommy for years, and he wants Olivia to testify. That night at a restaurant, Paul proposes to Olivia, who accepts. Olivia excuses herself to the bathroom and is attacked by Tommy's associate, Freddie "Flakes" Garrity (Robert Joy), a supposed brilliant assassin, who is dressed as the most unconvincing women you have ever seen. He bashes her head on a mirror, supposedly disfiguring her face to the point she can’t look at herself and the doctors had to ‘fight to save her life’, even though she clearly only had a scratch above her eye. Freddie escapes but Paul gets a look at him and cleverly sees through his drag outfit. At the hospital, Paul is told that even if Olivia will get reconstructive surgery, her face will never be the same. While there, he meets Lt. Mickey King (Kenneth Welsh) and his partner Janice Omori (Lisa Inouye), who are working on the O'Shea's case. During a failed bugging mission on the mob, Janice is killed after getting struck by Freddie's car. Then at the hospital, Lt. King warns Kersey not to go back to his old ways, before saying that he has been working on the case for 16 years. Kersey remarks that is a long time to be failing. Freddie and his henchmen, pretending to be the cops sent to protect Olivia, attack Paul and Olivia. Freddie shoots Olivia in the back, killing her as the couple tries to escape. Paul jumps from the roof of his apartment, where he lands in a pile of trash bags, and is retrieved by the police. It’s rather odd that the front of their house is a house and the back of their house is a huge warehouse, but these are minor details. Tommy is cleared of involvement in Olivia's death and seeks custody of their daughter. The vigilante is back. This time he is assisted by Hoyle, who learns his department has been corrupted by Tommy. Paul poisons Chicki with cyanide in his cannoli. He then kills Freddie in the most hilariously convoluted manner by blowing him up with a remote-controlled soccer ball. Tommy finds out from an informant that Paul is the vigilante and will be going after him for killing Olivia. The informant, revealed to be Vasquez, tries to kill Paul himself, but Paul gets the upper hand and kills him. Hoyle arrives and finds out Tommy wants both him and Paul dead. Hoyle tells Paul he must never see him again, and Paul agrees. Tommy hires three hoodlums (the same criminals responsible for murdering Paul's wife and mugging his daughter twenty years earlier) to go after Paul at the dress factory, using Chelsea as bait, although she manages to escape. Paul first faces the killers and then Sal, another one of Tommy's men, by shooting him into an industrial sewing machine. Paul picks up an empty bottle, smashes it, and cuts Tommy's face in retaliation for what he did to Olivia. Lt. King then arrives, but is wounded by Tommy. Armed with a shotgun, he corners Tommy and knocks him into an acid pool, where he disintegrates. I do love it when the bad guy disintegrates at the end of a movie. Like I say, it’s utter garbage but Parks is a great villain and its got that certain magic that bad 90s action films had that make me go all nostalgic. Awful, but thoroughly entertaining.