Death Wish 3

Dir: Michael Winner

1985

*/*****

Death Wish 3 is so bad it’s amazing. Legend has it that the original working title Death Wish III was changed to Death Wish 3 because the Cannon Group conducted a survey and found that nearly half of the U.S. population could not read Roman numerals. This film was made for those people. Death Wish 3 is a Cannon classic and pretty much everyone associated with the first film disowned it. Financially, Cannon’s most reliable products were formulaic action films starring Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris and other stars of the genre. Bronson haggled with Cannon over his fee so they offered the role to Chuck Norris who turned it down claiming that the violence in the movie was "too negative". In the end Bronson was paid $1.5 million out of the $10 million budget. It was Bill & Ted star Alex Winter’s first film and he has since said that Bronson had a jaguar that would drive him from his dressing room to the set, which was about three feet away. He noted that it was "more like watching a man play golf than act". Once again, director Michael Winner was recruited for the film project and once again he accepted due to his last two films being box office flops. He was in need of a surefire hit and at this point the Death Wish name alone would guarantee ticket sales. He decided against retaining the grim tone of the previous two Death Wish films, in favour of going gung-ho for the third film. The concept of Paul Kersey facing a street gang which terrorizes elderly citizens was developed by screenwriter Don Jakoby. His screenplay reportedly turned Kersey into an urban version of John Rambo, displeasing Bronson in the process. The producers then tasked Gail Morgan Hickman to write other potential versions of the script. Hickman came up with three different script samples and submitted them for approval. He learned weeks later that they were all rejected in favor of keeping Jakoby's version. However, Jakoby objected to extensive rewrites of his script and asked for his name to be removed from the credits. The film used the pseudonym "Michael Edmonds" to credit its screenwriter. Bronson too disliked the script and the violence, saying "there are men on motorbikes, an element that's threatening - throwing bottles and that sort of thing - and I machine gun them. That to me is excessive violence and is unnecessary.” Still, if the money is right. There is no excusing the violence and brutality this time round, it’s gratuitous because that’s what Michael Winner wanted. The film includes a scene involving punks attempting to rape a topless woman. The role was played by Sandy Grizzle, the then-lover of Winner. She would subsequently report of this relationship in the tabloids where she claimed that Winner whipped her and used her as a sex slave. In the amazing documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, Alex Winter described Winner as "a pathologically brutal, strange, sadistic, insecure, egotistical character". He also recalled how Winner would walk around onset smoking a big cigar while an assistant walked behind him with a cigar box. If the assistant went over a certain line, he was fired. Winner had a new assistant every day. In this third chapter we find Paul Kersey as he returns to New York City after years of being banned for his vigilante past. He’s in town to visit his Korean War buddy Charley, who is attacked by a gang in his East New York apartment just before Hersey gets there. The neighbors hear the commotion and call the police. Paul arrives and Charley collapses dead in his arms. The police mistake Paul for the murderer and arrest him. At the police station, Inspector Richard Shriker recognises Paul as "Mr. Vigilante" as he has become known. Shriker lays down the law before Paul is taken to a holding cell. In the same cell is Manny Fraker (Gavan O'Herlihy), leader of the gang who killed Charley. After a fight between him and Paul, Manny is released. The police receive daily reports about the increased rate of crime. Shriker offers a deal to Paul: he can kill all the punks he wants, as long as he informs Shriker of any gang activity he hears about so the police can get a bust and make news. Paul moves into Charley's apartment in a gang-turf war zone. The building is populated by elderly tenants terrified of Manny's gang. They include Bennett Cross, a World War II veteran and Charley's buddy; Mr. and Mrs. Kaprov, an elderly Jewish couple; and a young Hispanic couple, Rodriguez (Joseph Gonzalez) and his wife Maria (Star Trek’s Marina Sirtis). After a few violent muggings, Paul buys a used car as bait. When two gang members try to break into the car, Paul shoots them dead. Paul twice protects Maria from the gang, but is unable to save her a third time. She is assaulted and raped, later dying in hospital from her injuries. Kersey orders a new gun, a Wildey hunting pistol. He spends the afternoon with Bennett handloading ammunition for it. He then tests the gun when The Giggler (Kirk Taylor) steals his camera. Paul is applauded by the neighborhood as Shriker and the police take the credit. Kersey also throws a gang member off a roof. Public defender Kathryn Davis becomes suspicious of Kersey so he decides to take her to dinner – even though he’s like, fifty years older than her. While waiting in his car, Kathryn is knocked unconscious by Manny and the car is pushed downhill into oncoming traffic. It runs into another car, not particularly hard, but explodes on contact anyway, killing Kathryn. Shriker places Kersey under protective custody, fearing he is in too deep. After Bennett's taxi shop is blown up, he tries to get even but his machine gun jams. The gang cripples Bennett but he survives. Kersey is taken by Shriker to the hospital, where he escapes after Bennett tells him where to find a second machine gun. Kersey and Rodriguez collect weapons. They proceed to mow down many of the criminals before running out of ammo. Other neighbors begin fighting back as Manny sends in reinforcements. The action sequence is ridiculous, over the top and goes on for hours. Shriker decides to help and he and Kersey take down much of the gang together. Kersey goes back to the apartment to collect more ammo, but Manny finds him there. Shriker arrives and shoots Manny, but not before getting wounded in the arm. As Kersey calls for an ambulance, Manny (who was secretly wearing a bulletproof vest) rises and turns his gun on the two men. As Shriker distracts him, Kersey uses a mail-ordered rocket launcher to obliterate Manny. The remainder of the gang rush to the scene and see Manny's smoldering remains. Surrounded by the angry crowds of neighbors, the gang realizes they've lost and flee the scene. As the neighbors cheer in celebration and with police sirens in the distance, Shriker gives Kersey a head start. While some of the film was shot in New York, Winner took the production to London to keep the costs low. Alex Winter suggested that he only got hired because he had a British passport. The cut from New York to London is glaringly obvious, it wouldn’t have been any less of a contrast if they had decided to film the second half under water. It’s hilarious. Bronson was 64 years old and they wanted him to run around like an urban Rambo. He rarely granted interviews, or commented on his own films but Bronson hated the film and said so, stating that he was especially angered when he discovered that Winner filmed extremely gory shots with extras when he was off-set. An infamously wicked director, a film studio that didn’t know what they were doing and an ageing star with prima donna-like tendencies. It’s a recipe for disaster but of all five of the original Death Wish films, this is the cult favourite. The video game on the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 was amazing at the time and certainly an influence on the Grand Theft Auto games that came years later.