Momentum

Dir: Stephen Campanelli

2015

*

The money a film makes has no baring on its quality and I stand by that statement. Avatar was the most successful film of all time for many years but I think few people would argue that it was the ‘greatest’ film ever made. Some of my favourite films didn’t make a penny, low budget masterpieces like 1992’s Eddie Presley came and went without anyone noticing and it was utterly brilliant. So just because Momentum came and went in 2015 without anyone noticing doesn’t mean that it’s a bad film. So it only made £46 at the UK box office, probably not surprising given that it had no advertising and only played for one day across just ten cinemas. People just see the headline ‘Film makes only £46 at the UK box office’ and assume the worst and that is wrong, just as people think films that make ridiculous amounts of money are automatically great. Real film fans know that there are many straight-to-video gems out there and Netflix should also tell people that a big financial cinema release doesn’t guarantee quality each and every time. I think I’ve made my point. However, 2015’s Momentum is a dreadful film and I feel sorry for those people who left the house and spent £46 between them to go see it. I’d want my money back if I were them. A great cameraman doth not necessarily make a great director, and while there was a touch of flare in Stephen Campanelli’s debut, there wasn’t much of anything else. The film opens up during a bank robbery, although you’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching three sex gimps playing laser quest. Our protagonist is Alex (Olga Kurylenko), a trained ex-military agent-turned-thief, who gets pulled by her former partner into a high-tech bank heist, her ‘one last job’. During said heist, which of course goes wrong, she accidentally steals a valuable flash drive containing incriminating evidence. Alex is then relentlessly pursued by a team of agents led by Mr. Washington (James Purefoy), who has been sent by an anonymous Senator (Morgan Freeman) to retrieve the flash drive. While involved in a violent and frenetic cat-and-mouse chase across the city, Alex tries to uncover the conspiracy behind her pursuers. I have to admit I love a good bank heist movie but this isn’t a good bank heist movie. The robbery is so high-tech it’s utterly ridiculous, flashing lights equaling clever stuff my tiny brain could never understand. Olga Kurylenko is not a leading actor and nor is she an action star. She’s barely an extra. There is something to be said for James Purefoy’s camp villain but it certainly cannot be taken seriously - Vincent Cassel was clever to jump ship when he did. Freeman offered his services to Campanelli for his directorial debut based on their prior working relationship, when he was a cameraman for Clint Eastwood but looking at most of the films Freeman has made over the last few years I’m starting to think that he owes someone a lot of money, possibly the same person Nicholas Cage and John Travolta owe. There is never an ounce of intrigue or suspense to be had, although I did wonder what the hell was going on for the first half of the movie – which doesn’t count. As a thriller it is never thrilling, the action is too mediocre for an action movie and it is far to predictable to ever be entertaining. I’m all for switching off to some mindless action but if one switches off too far then they fall asleep and that is what I felt myself constantly battling against. The real joke was that it was intended as an entry point to a franchise. Perhaps that was the origin of its failure – it was written with other films in mind and not enough time was spent on simply getting the one film right. It’s a bit obtuse really, and it failed because of it. It is deeply ironic that it was called Momentum as that was the one thing it was severely lacking, especially for a self-proclaimed action film. It’s the sort of thing even Milla Jovovich would pass on – and that’s saying something (although I still love her). Cliché, predictable, formulaic, boring….I have very little else to say about it.

The Killers

Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky

1956

****

Film students, Andrei Tarkovsky fans, cinephiles and film lovers in general are all so lucky that The Killers, Andrei Tarkovsky and Aleksandr Gordon’s first student film, has survived and is available to watch all these years later. Tarkovsky and Gordon were students in Russia’s State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) together and worked together on their first assignment. Students were required to work on films in groups of two or threes due to a lack of equipment at the film school. Tarkovsky and Gordon asked Marika Beiku to work with them. The Killers is an adaptation of a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The story is divided into three scenes. The first and third scenes were directed by Beiku and Tarkovsky, the second by Gordon. The first scene shows Nick Adams (Yuli Fait) observing two gangsters (Valentin Vinogradov and Boris Novikov) in black coats and black hats entering a small-town diner where Adams is eating. They tell the owner, George (Aleksandr Gordon), that they are searching for the boxer Ole Andreson and that they want to kill him. They tie up Nick Adams and the cook, and wait for Ole Andreson to appear. Three customers enter the restaurant and are sent away by George. One of the customers is played by Tarkovsky, who whistles Lullaby of Birdland. The second scene shows Nick Adams visiting Ole Andreson (Vasiliy Shukshin) in his hide-out, a small room. He warns Andreson about the two gangsters, but Andreson is resigned to his fate and unwilling to flee. The third scene shows Adams returning to the diner and informing the owner of Andreson's decision. Apart from the fact that the gangsters are all very young, the film is slick and authentic looking with some beautiful compositions. The idea for adapting Ernest Hemingway's short story was Tarkovsky's. All roles were played by students of the VGIK, and the camera and lighting was handled by fellow students Alfredo Álvarez and Aleksandr Rybin. Beiku, Gordon and Tarkovsky set up an American bar in the studio of the film school, at this time a symbol of depravity and becoming a minor attraction among students. Props were brought by students from their homes, and from relatives and friends. The film was praised by Mikhail Romm, the professor and teacher of the three students and even now, with bigger budgets and advances technology, it’s pretty hard to beat for a student film. While it’s nothing like what you’d expect from a later Tarkovsky film, it is fascinating to see how competent and creative he was so early on in his career. Certain themes can be seen here that would be seen throughout Tarkovsky’s body of work, including the unmistakable emphasis on the simplicity of suspense, of human action in desperate circumstances and his dependence on figures in curiously exciting compositions. It’s a remarkable black and white noir that is just as good as Robert Siodmak’s 1946 freature-length adaptation. Ernest Hemingway would never have seen the film, and I’d love to have seen his expression upon knowing that a work of his had been adapted into Russian, but even he would have admitted that Tarkovsky’s version felt authentic. I do wonder whether Tarkovsky, Gordon and Beiku rocked a few boats by adapting Hemingway, seeing as the author’s work had only just been allowed by the government to be published in 1956. Various tricks used in the short still seem beyond the reach of many contemporary directors. Part of the skill, and curiosity, in how tense the long first scene at the diner is that music is completely absent, with the only tone coming from Tarkovsky himself as a whistling customer. Meanwhile, Tarkovsky uses Hemingway's dialogue in a very realistic manner. While the film ends on a screeching halt, the sense of ambiguity as to the fate of the characters is worthwhile for the material, as it's perfectly anti-climactic. It’s a student film that shows off the technical skills of the students but it also captures Hemingway’s idea and builds on it with the student’s own take on the situation. It’s unlike anything else Tarkovsky made but you can still see comparisons to his later work. I also see so many contemporary films within the short, I do wonder just how much of an influence The Killers has been on many of the big-time directors we know today?

The Sisters Brothers

Dir: Jacques Audiard

2019

****

2019’s The Sisters Brothers is proof that you can’t base a film’s quality on how much money it makes. Based on the award-winning novel by Patrick deWitt and directed by one of France’s best directors Jacques Audiard, the film features a brilliant story, a fantastic script and some awesome performances by John C. Reilly (who also produced), Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed – four of my favourite actors working today. It also features the great Rutger Hauer in the last film before his death. Set in the American West in 1851, brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters (Reilly and Phoenix) are gunfighters hired by a wealthy businessman, known as the Commodore (Hauer). He tasks them to kill a man named Hermann Warm (Ahmed). Meanwhile John Morris (Gyllenhaal), a private detective, has been engaged by the Commodore to track Warm down and hand him over to the Sisters brothers. Morris finds Warm traveling by wagon train to California with the Gold Rush and befriends him. They travel to Jacksonville where, unbeknownst to Warm, Morris has arranged his rendezvous with the Sisters brothers. Warm finds Morris’ handcuffs, realizes his true intentions, and threatens him at gunpoint, but Morris overpowers him. Warm reveals that he is en route to find gold using a chemical formula of his own invention; the Sisters brothers have been sent to retrieve the formula, most likely by torturing Warm before killing him. Refusing to allow an innocent man’s murder, Morris frees Warm and the two leave Jacksonville. On the road toward San Francisco, Warm reveals that his ultimate plan is to create a utopian society, free from greed and other social ills in Dallas, Texas. Meanwhile, the brothers' pursuit is plagued by misfortune. A grizzly bear attacks their camp and mauls a horse, Eli almost dies from a venomous spider bite, and Charlie is repeatedly drunk and too hung over to ride. When they discover Morris' betrayal in Jacksonville, they follow the pair to Mayfield. At Ms. Mayfield's hotel and brothel, she denies having seen Warm and Morris, but offers the brothers a warm welcome. A sympathetic prostitute warns Eli of an impending attack, and he attempts to leave with a drunken Charlie, but they are cornered by gunslingers hired by Mayfield. The brothers kill the gunslingers and interrogate Mayfield as to Warm's and Morris’ whereabouts, before murdering and robbing her. In San Francisco, Charlie and Eli argue about continuing their hunt. Eli wishes to retire but Charlie angrily rejects this idea. The next day, Charlie reveals that he has found a claim staked in Morris’ name a few days' ride away. Eli agrees to complete the hunt as their final job. On the way to the claim site, the brothers are ambushed and captured by Warm and Morris, who are then attacked by Mayfield's men sent before her death to claim the formula for herself. The four men team up to kill Mayfield's men, after which Charlie and Eli agree to help Warm and Morris find gold in exchange for half the takings. Warm and Morris decide to prospect together and create a phalanstère in Dallas. Working to dam the river, the new partners develop a camaraderie. Eli reveals to Warm that Charlie killed their abusive, alcoholic father when they were young, and that Charlie's short temper and violent tendencies put him in danger, so Eli reluctantly took up their present employment to protect him. The dam is completed, and Warm explains that when his chemical formula is added to water, it causes gold ore to glow briefly, but is extremely caustic. The men pour the formula into the river and begin gathering the gold. When the glow begins to fade, Charlie panics and tries to add more formula, but spills the undiluted substance onto his hand and into the river. Eli rushes out of the river to restrain Charlie, while the undiluted formula badly injures Warm and Morris. The next day, Warm succumbs to his injuries while Morris shoots himself to end his suffering. Eli takes Charlie to the nearest town, where a doctor amputates his arm. Hired guns sent by the Commodore arrive and demand their surrender. Eli shoots them, and he and Charlie decide they must kill the Commodore. They arrive in Oregon City to find that the Commodore has died of natural causes. The brothers return home to their mother; though initially suspicious, she welcomes them in and they rest. John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix make such an unlikely pair that they are actually quite convincing as real brothers, that is, brothers that are nothing alike. I also liked the partnership of Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed who joined forces once more following Nightcrawler. It’s a film with two great duos, which makes me wonder why more films don’t adopt the same idea. I would never describe the film as a comedy but there is an underlying humour in the film that is very self-aware of the genre as well as the era. I wouldn’t call it a neo-western either, as it is very much a classical western but without all of the 1950s clichés. I’m a huge fan of director Jacques Audiard following his masterpieces including The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Rust and Bone and A Prophet but I never would have thought of him for this story. He direction is perfect, and in classic western style the film is entirely filmed outside of the US, in Spain, France and Romania. It’s a strong and well rounded contemporary western with all the right levels of drama and humour My only criticism is that Rutger Hauer didn’t have a bigger part, indeed, he didn’t even speak. Apart from that it was one of my favourite films of the year.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Dir: Michael Cimino

1974

****

Michael Cimino had a funny career. I think he should be considered one of the greatest writer/directors of all time thanks to The Deer Hunter alone, but he made some other good films. The stupid thing is that he is also often remembered for Heaven’s Gate, a film some have called ‘The worst film of all time’ which of course it isn’t. It lost money, but it is a great film. I find that most of the real worst films of all time are some of the highest earning films of all time, but I digress. Quite how you go from a film like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to The Deer Hunter in just four years is anyone’s guess but everyone has to start somewhere and in my opinion Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a pretty good directional debut. He’d written a couple of great scripts before this, so I’m not sure why he’d be given someone else’s work but Stan Kamen of the William Morris Agency came up with the initial idea for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and gave it to Cimino to write on speculation with Clint Eastwood in mind. Eastwood was available after turning down the lead role in Charley Varrick. Due to the great financial success of Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider, road pictures were a popular genre in Hollywood. Eastwood himself wanted to do a road movie so when agent Leonard Hirshan brought the script to Eastwood from fellow agent Kamen he liked it so much that he originally intended to direct it himself. However, on meeting Cimino, he decided to give him the directing job instead, giving Cimino his big break and feature-film directorial debut. Cimino later said that if it was not for Eastwood, he never would have had a career in film. It is essentially Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but set in the 1970s and with cars (I know Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was made in the 1960s, just five years previous but you know what I mean). There is an instant grittiness to the film, our protagonists are anti-heroes throughout and if they look good at any point its only because there is someone worse in the car next to them. The fact that they remain that way makes them likable, the fact that there is still honour among thieves makes them more so. The movie starts with a young ne'er-do-well called Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) stealing a car from a showroom. While Lightfoot speeds down the dusty road, elsewhere an assassin attempts to shoot a preacher while he’s delivering a sermon at his pulpit. The preacher manages to escape on foot and runs towards the road. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, inadvertently rescues the preacher by running over his pursuer and giving him a lift. Cue a rather pointless stunt whereby the preacher hangs onto the car as Lightfoot does doughnuts in the dust. The stunt was performed by Eastwood because he wanted to do it. Lightfoot eventually learns that the "minister" is really a notorious bank robber known as "The Thunderbolt" (Eastwood) for his use of an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon to break into a safe. Hiding out in the guise of a clergyman following the robbery of a Montana bank, Thunderbolt is the only member of his old gang who knows where the loot is hidden. After escaping another attempt on his life by two other men, Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying to kill him are members of his gang who mistakenly thought Thunderbolt had double-crossed them. Instead of parting ways, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot journey to Montana to retrieve the money hidden in an old one-room schoolhouse. However, when they get there they discover  that the schoolhouse has been replaced by a brand-new school standing in its place. While wondering what to do next, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are abducted by the men who were pursuing them - the vicious Red Leary (George Kennedy) and the gentle Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis) - and driven to a remote location where Thunderbolt and Red fight each other, after which Thunderbolt explains how he never betrayed the gang. While the original gang member bicker, Lightfoot proposes another heist, robbing the same company as before as they wouldn’t expect it. In the city where the bank is located, the men find jobs to raise money for needed equipment while they plan the heist. The robbery begins as Thunderbolt and Red gain access to the building. Lightfoot, dressed as a woman, distracts the Western Union office's security guard, deactivates the ensuing alarm, and is picked up by Goody. Using an anti-tank cannon to breach the vault's wall, as they did in the first heist, the gang escapes with the loot. They flee in the car, with Red and Goody in the trunk, to a nearby drive-in movie in progress. Upon seeing a shirt tail protruding from the car's trunk lid (which is a strong indication one or more people are hiding in the trunk to avoid paying), the suspicious theater manager goes to investigate. Red becomes increasingly agitated and Thunderbolt leaves the drive-in, encountering police at the exit. Thunderbolt then drives erratically to escape from the police, attracting attention to themselves. A chase ensues. Goody is shot and Red throws him out of the trunk onto a dirt road, where he dies. Red then forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to stop the car. He pistol-whips them both, knocking them unconscious, and kicks Lightfoot violently in the head. Red takes off with the loot in the getaway car but is again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, causing him to lose control of the car and crash through the window of a department store, where he is attacked and killed by the store's vicious watchdog. Escaping on foot, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot hitch a ride the next morning and are dropped off near Warsaw, Montana, where they stumble upon the one-room schoolhouse which is now a historical monument on the side of a highway, moved there from its original location in Warsaw after the first heist. As the two men retrieve the stolen money, Lightfoot's behavior becomes erratic as a result of the kick to the head. Thunderbolt buys a new Cadillac convertible with cash, something Lightfoot said he had always wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control of the left side of his body. As they drive away celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred voice how proud he is of their 'accomplishments', and slumps over dead. Thunderbolt snaps his cigar in half (as it is no longer a celebration), and with his dead partner beside him, he drives off down the highway into the distance. It’s a much lighter film than many road movies of the era but it also has an edge to it the others didn’t have. It is a neo-western in many respects, rather than a full road movie. It has been noted by several sources that Clint Eastwood perceived himself to be upstaged by Jeff Bridges, which of course he was. Bridges received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Again Eastwood made it clear to some that he believed his performance was also Oscar worthy. Ultimately Eastwood was disappointed with the film's initial disappointing nine million dollar receipts, and blamed United Artists for inadequately promoting the film. Despite his relationship with the studio on the spaghetti Westerns and a two-picture deal from the studio, he never made another film for them again. I’m not a huge Clint Eastwood fan, I don’t care for melodrama and any heist film where a character has to dress in drag has clearly run out of ideas… but I have always loved Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. I loved Jeff Bridges’ performance, how Eastwood allowed it and also the great turns from George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis – the film’s unsung heroes. Michael Cimino was a master film maker and his masterpieces are on another level, and while Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is no Deerhunter, it’s a solid gold 70s classic in its own right.

Joker

Dir: Todd Phillips

2019

*****

For all the criticism and praise that has been thrown at Todd Phillips’ Joker, it really isn’t a particularly original film and is nothing we haven’t seen before. I’m not just referring to the very obvious cinematic influences such as Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy and Network, but also what authors and artists have been doing in the comics for decades. In many respects I should be outraged at the similarities to the great 1970s films that I have mentioned but I’m not, not only because I’m elated by the fact that the story embraces all the creativity of the comics but because said influences have been acknowledged and reworked into something rather profound. I guess you could say it was a simple and easy trick to pull but it doesn’t take away just how impressive it is. Once more it is the people who are three steps behind complaining about it. The violence is nothing out of the ordinary and it has been long established that television, movies and comics do not influence violence, indeed, they’ve been scapegoated for many years by the sort of people this film condemns. People have criticised the film makers depiction of mental health, suggesting that it be in bad taste but frankly it is quite obviously fictional. I don’t understand why creating a fake mental illness is somehow worse than just labeling someone as bad? Not once does Joker suggest that anyone/everyone with a mental illness is a possible murderer, even if it did, why is everyone suddenly shocked and disgusted by it now? For years films have confused legitimate mental health conditions and have portrayed them incorrectly. Films have also included mindless violence for years, 99% of which haven’t battered a single eyelid. The difference between Joker and the all the rest isn’t only because it is attached to a superhero/comic franchise, but because it’s a film of quality. Heroism has been explored several times in comic/superhero films of late, so exploring villainy is logical progression. Batman is nothing without his enemies, a long established fact, so why can’t they have their own origin movie and why can’t their characters be explored? People just don’t like to admit that there is more to people than just good and bad, indeed, good people do bad things and not everyone is born bad. People have related to the Joker in this film because of a very fundamental truth, that when one is bullied, victimized, declared worthless and uncared for for most of their lives they can, and often will, rebel. Throughout the film Joker toys with the idea of suicide, it is only towards the end that he decides not to and to fight back. The idea that Joker is a failed stand up comedian is very clever and first appeared in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke. The idea that he isn’t simply evil is also explained and it is a classic within the genre. Only non-comic fans seem to get upset about comics – a whole thirty years late. The idea that Joker also has an obsession with a TV talk show is also very clever and gives the film relevance, even though the film is set in the early 1980s. It is a clear reference to Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy and even has the film’s lead, Robert De Niro as the TV host. In the film Joker is ridiculed by talk show host Murray Franklin for a cheap laugh, a devastating blow to the aspiring comedian and super fan. It was strange then to watch The Graham Norton Show the week after the film’s release where Robert De Niro was a guest. He didn’t look comfortable for the entire show, especially when members of the public are ridiculed at the end of the show. There are so many aspects of Joker that one can relate to in our current social and political climate, it can hide behind the fact that its part of a superhero universe but it never really does. It points out that Bruce Wayne’s dad can’t have been all nice to get as rich as he is and any pain and suffering that young Bruce might endure can be matched by anyone else’s. You have to remember that Batman is also a vigilante, fueled by revenge. Are we asked to sympathise with Joker at any point? Yes, in a way we are, but that sympathy is quite clearly extinguished in the scene whereby Joker decides exactly what path his future lies. The point is we can condemn crime while also acknowledging how and why is happens. It isn’t loony-leftism, bleeding-heart liberalism or the soft approach either, it is rational thought and using one’s brain. You don’t keep treating an ailment, you look for the cause and try to catch and cure it before the illness takes hold. Joker is an example of what can happen when we don’t do this. Joker is a film that asks us to think about this but as always those that can’t grasp this have spoken first and have spoken loudest. The mob that follow Joker are the lost and forgotten, and while Joker isn’t political, the lost and forgotten – and ignorant, are marching all over the world at the moment, waving flags and doing one-armed salutes. I would argue that most people who commit crime are unintelligent, have given up and think of themselves as worthless. These people are uneducated and have been neglected by society. Just labeling someone as evil is too easy. However, you can be both and in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. When you’ve lost everything you have nothing to loose, a phrase that is worth remembering, which I think is brilliantly explored. I’m going to stop there because I don’t think anyone is talking about the film’s good qualities enough. I still can’t quite believe this is a Todd Phillips film so I’ve decided not to be too quick to judge from now on. The story works well on its own and as part of Batman mythology, I liked the non-Batman parts better but the Wayne side of the story was short and sweet and worked well. The film was a visual feast from start to finish with every single scene and every single shot filmed with purpose and finesse. It is intended as a Scorsese tribute and that is exactly what it is, capturing the director’s temperament and visual style quite remarkably. The pace of the film is perfectly staggered which meant that the climax of the film was perfectly executed and didn’t come from out of nowhere. This wasn’t about the decent into madness, this was about a rebirth, a very different kettle of fish. Of course none of this would have meant anything if the casting hadn’t been right. The script was written for Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver stool their ground when it came to him being cast. Warner Bros, who deserve credit for going along with it, decided they wanted Leonardo DiCaprio for the Joker as Scorsese was, at that time, meant to be a producer. They want it to be a big Scorsese/DiCaprio/De Niro picture, missing the point of the performance for a marketing angle. Scorsese pulled out because of work commitments but De Niro was cast as a character he himself chased after in The King of Comedy. It’s a lovely full-circle bit of casting. However, the film belongs to Phoenix. The idea is great, it looks great and has been marketed brilliantly but Phoenix brings the Joker alive like no one has before. He was good friends with the late Heath Ledger, so it is nice to see him carry the character Ledger will be best remembered for to its next natural state. The big picture is there in all its glory but there are also some lovely little details that I loved. Batman fans will be happy with all the Gotham references but there were other aspects I liked, like Joker watching Charlie Chaplin on the big screen. It is only when you watch Chaplin running that you release that from Ceaser Romario to Joaquin Phoenix, a huge part of all of the live-action versions of Joker’s physiology is Charlie Chaplin’s silly walk. It feels like an indulgent film in many respects, one that seems people have immersed themselves in. Phoenix’s Joker won’t start riots and no one is going to kill anyone because of this film’s existence but it will become iconic and every teenagers bedroom will now have Phoenix’s Joker on the wall instead/next to Ledgers.

Dragged Across Concrete

Dir: S. Craig Zahler

2019

*****

S. Craig Zahler is fast becoming one of my favourite directors. Following his awesome debut Bone Tomahawk and the brilliant Block 99 comes Dragged Across Concrete, which is every bit as brutal as it sounds. Indeed, the title is a clue of what to expect but this really isn’t the film you might think it is. There are essentially three different stories at play with a little sub-story thrown in for good measure. While Bone Tomahawk was straight to DVD and Block 99 received limited release, it was thought that Zahler had since proven himself and that Dragged Across Concrete would enjoy a wide theatrical release. However, Lionsgate requested the film be edited down to an audience friendly 130 minutes which was met with much disdain from Zahler. Considering the final cut clause in his contract, Lionsgate opted to release the film in a limited theatrical run and same day digital, mirroring the other Zahler releases. The film stands uncut and unedited at 159 minutes and Lionsgate look stupid. I enjoyed the film in the comfort of my own home but I would have basked in the glory of this film in the cinema. Zahler was right to keep the film to its original 159 minute run time as every minute counts and means something. Rushing such a movie would be overlooking what it is all about. It might not appear so at first but this is a total deconstruction of the crime thriller/buddy cop film as we know it. There are four angles at play. Firstly we have Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn as buddy cops Brett Ridgeman and Anthony Lurasetti. Ridgeman is old school, rough, gets the job done but hasn’t been promoted in decades due to his attitude. Getting on in age, he is becoming resentful, a sick wife and a bullied daughter only add to his worry. Lurasetti is slightly younger, respectful of his experienced partner but a little softer in his approach. After an arrest gets a little rough and is filmed on CCTV, the pair find themselves on a months unpaid dismissal. The usual grilling detectives get in such films is completely different, calm and realistic. Don Johnson is their Chief Lt. Calvert and Ridgeman’s ex-partner. There is no harking for the old days or complaining about the new rules. Quite refreshingly, they discuss the matter and underline the fact that police brutality isn’t okay, no matter who they are arresting. The clichés are assassinated one by one from there on. We then meet Henry John (Tory Kittles), a black man recently released from prison. We never learn of his crime, we see him return home to find his mother on the game and taking drugs, neglecting his disabled younger brother. Several clichés are addressed here through exaggeration. He meets up with his best friend Biscuit (Michael Jai White) to find some criminal jobs to pay the bills. We then go back to Ridgeman who is looking for other means of income. A clean cop all his life, he looks for a criminal he can perhaps steal from and goes to see Friedrich (played by the great Udo Kier) who is and isn’t the archetype underground criminal boss. Using a tailors as a cover, but probably making more money from it, Friedrich suggests a criminal in town that Ridgeman could consider, as thanks for helping out his son a few years back. The criminal turns out to be a Lorentz Vogelmann, a cold, characterless foreign gentleman – another extreme cliché. Vogelmann has two accomplices, both faceless and as cold as he. We see a spate of small robberies committed by Vogelmann that see him steal very little while taking great joy from shooting people. During a late night grocery shop robbery, he stays longer than most criminals would after shooting the cashier and a customer, simply to shoot the shop up a bit more, aiming at the television, the bottles of spirits and even the display of snacks. Vogelmann is basically a criminal, and all the ways people view criminals as. He isn’t a real person, we know nothing about him other than he’s foreign, he’s bad, he steals, he kills. He’s the ultimate cliché criminal. Henry and Biscuit are hired as get away drivers, unfortunately for them, it turns out to be for Vogelmann and his team. Henry and Biscuit drive them to the bank they’re set to rob, while Ridgeman and Lurasetti follow, neither of them knowing what Vogelmann has in mind. This is where we reach the film’s subplot and possibly the most important part of the story. Rewind to that morning, and we find bank teller Kelly Summer (Jennifer Carpenter) going through a panic attack on her first day back to work following maternity leave. We see her beg her husband to let her back home after she failed to get on her bus. He locks her out of their apartment ‘for her own good’ and reassures her that he can and will look after their baby but they need the money, she earns more and so it makes sense that she goes back to work. It’s a tender moment, especially in our house as Mrs Crocodile will be going back to work after maternity leave very soon. She plucks up the courage to go to work and is welcomed by her boss and fellow employees, right before the bank is robbed. She is given way more character development than most victims and for good reason. Zahler gives a face to his victim and out of everyone who is killed in the film her death is the most brutal. Why so brutal? Because it has to be. People are murdered all the time in film, we have become numb to it, so much so that we barely even flinch. So many bank robbery films are shown from the perspective of the robber and we have become accustomed to wanting them to get away with it. We cheer them on, thinking they’ve stuck it to the man and have stolen from a greedy business but the truth is it is our money and it doesn’t belong to them. Armed robbers are the worst, here we see them as they are and we see their murders for the horrific acts of brutality that they are. It seems strange to me that a deconstructed film such as this is actually just showing things for the way they really are. The ending isn’t a happy one for everyone, which I like very much. In many respects it’s a reaction to a specific trend in Hollywood at the moment. I can’t help but think it’s a swipe at the likes of Quentin Tarantino to be honest, but it is also a swipe at his critics. The brutality isn’t just in the brutality either, its life in general. Dragged Across Concrete is an ambiguous and rather sly title for the film, make of it what you will but to just see a violent for violence sake film is to completely miss the point. Cliches are mocked and exaggerated but without a hint of comedy. Subjects such as racism are addressed but not in a matter of fact manner, casual racism remaining within each character. It is interesting that Mel Gibson would find a film with such subjects but I think it is all part of the exploration. The two black characters in the film ‘white up’, turning the idea of ‘blacking up’ on its head. No one blinked an eyelid. It’s all food for thought but mostly it is about concentrating on what is really happening and about objectivity. I thought it was a slow-burning and ridiculously intense thriller masterpiece.

The Naked Truth

Dir: Mario Zampi

1957

*****

The great Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers were often sought after for the same roles and even though they were friends, they were also each other’s main competition in many respects. So when they did star along-side each other it was a treat for viewers, a treat that never gets old, even all these years later. This would be the first of several films the pair would make together and a film that would change their careers forever. If they weren’t enough, the film also features the brilliant Dennis Price, Bond girl Shirley Eaton and Carry On legend Joan Sims. Written by Michael Pertwee (Son of Roland, Brother of Jon and Uncle of Sean) and directed by Mario Zampi, who shot the brilliant Laughter in Paradise and Too Many Crooks, 1957’s The Naked Truth has all the right ingredients for a British comedy classic, and yet, it’s often overlooked. People tend to remember the Ealing Comedies more so and I understand why. The performances and the dialogue are second to none in The Naked Truth, the only problem is that it takes so long for the story to really get going. The story begins with the wonderfully suave Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price), a blackmailer who threatens to publish embarrassing secrets in his magazine The Naked Truth. After attempting to blackmail a famous scientist (who commits suicide), and an MP (who suffers a heart attack in parliament, and probably succumbs), his latest targets are Lord Henry Mayley (Terry-Thomas), television host Sonny MacGregor (Peter Sellers), writer Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount), and model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton). Several of them decide independently that murder would be a better solution than paying. However, it is Mayley who by sheer bad luck nearly ends up the victim of both MacGregor and Ransom's schemes. The four eventually join forces and try again. That attempt also fails, but Dennis is then arrested for an earlier crime. When Dennis threatens to reveal all at his trial, Mayley comes up with a scheme to break him out of prison and send him to South America, with the help of hundreds of his other victims. They phone in numerous fake calls for help, distracting the London police, while Mayley, MacGregor, and MacGregor's reluctant assistant Porter (Kenneth Griffith), disguised as policemen, whisk Dennis away. Knocking Dennis unconscious periodically, they finally end up in the cabin of a blimp on the way to a rendezvous with an outbound ship. To their dismay, when he comes to, Dennis refuses to go along with their plan, as he in fact never wanted to reveal any of their secrets in court. He was, in fact, optimistic about the trial anyway, and reveals that the evidence was his copies of The Naked Truth which had been destroyed by the plotters earlier. Happy to have outsmarted his opponents again, but unaware of where he is, Dennis then steps out for some air and plummets to the ocean below. When MacGregor celebrates by shooting his pistol, it punctures the blimp, which shoots away into the distance. A comedy caper that ends in hilarious demise is always good in my book, although this is made far better thanks to the absurdity and the fact it features a blimp. It was a timely satire of tabloid journalists and celebrity culture that was becoming infamous around the time, my only real criticism is that the story, or should I say the characters, could have come together a little sooner. I also think the comedy could have been a bit darker, but the conclusion goes a long way in making up for this. The comedy timing is absolutely perfect and I can’t help but think modern comics should watch films such as this before attempting stand up, or any performance comedy for that matter. The film did well but the actors did better. Peter Sellers was on the global radar thanks to The Ladykiller but The Naked Truth was the one that made him and saw him leave for American shores. Terry-Thomas was ever so slightly more established than Sellers but his career took off also and he made, in my opinion, his best films within the next ten years, thanks largely to The Naked Truth. I think Dennis Price is the overlooked actor in the film, he is the straight man but in order to play it as wonderfully as he does, means being unnaturally generous for an actor. This was only three years his failed suicide attempt and at the time many director/producer friends took great sympathy on him and he enjoyed quite a fruitful career from then on.  It’s one of those great classics where the performers don’t compete with one another. They understood that working together for the bigger picture is always far more successful than when actors compete with on another. I can’t bare watching Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron-Cohen films for the fact that they compete with their fellow actors, often to the detriment of the comedy. It makes their single performances feel forced, which they are, and uncomfortably unfunny (I’m looking at you Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby). I’m not sure we’ll ever see the likes of Terry-Thomas or Peter Sellers again, I’m not saying that because I’ve turned into a cantankerous old man either (although I have), but they were such unique characters who were so multi-talented, and no one has, and I doubt anyone will, make me laugh the same way they do. Goodness knows why it was released in the U.S. as Your Past is Showing? Sounds a bit rude if you ask me.

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.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown

Dir: J. Lee Thompson

1987

****

Death Wish 3 was a ridiculous film, but it made money, and if there was one thing the Cannon group was good at, it was flogging a dead horse with huge sums of money. Cannon Films announced Death Wish 4 in 1986, estimating that it would be ready for release by spring 1987, even though the film company was by this point facing huge financial problems. Its greatest box office hit was still 1984’s Missing in Action with $38 million domestic gross and Cannon had lost money through huge box office flops. We might look back at the films they made now with nostalgic whimsy but their films sucked at the time. So by the time Death Wish 4 came along they tightened the budgets of all their upcoming films to under $5 million per movie. They reached an agreement with independent producer Pancho Kohner, son of Paul Kohner - Paul Kohner being the agent of Charles Bronson. Pancho himself had produced seven previous Bronson films, so the men trusted each other and decided to take the franchise down a route of their choosing. Michael Winner did not return to direct, with the excuse at the time being that he was working on another project at the time but the truth is he was never asked. Bronson was displeased with their previous collaboration and decided to work with J. Lee Thompson, who he had worked with in several previous films, and had also had a good working relationship with the producers of Cannon Films. Writing duties were ultimately assigned to Gail Morgan Hickman, who had previously contributed rejected scripts for Death Wish 3. Hickman's first script, which had Paul Kersey struggling with a crisis of conscience was rejected. The second script, which had Kersey going after an international terrorist, was rejected due to its premise having similarities to 1987’s Wanted: Dead or Alive. Disheartened, probably, Hickman decided to just copy Akira Kurasowa’s Yojimbo, although he might have been copying Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, it is unclear, but it’s the same story. He later said in an interview that Cannon producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus wanted a mindless movie with nonstop action, so he came up with "cartoonish" action scenes especially for them. Hickman also admitted that he wrote the film as they filmed it, being called by Bronson himself to re-write scenes on a daily basis. In this fourth instalment, Kersey has a crackdown. Erica Sheldon (Dana Barron), the teenage daughter of Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz – who was only 12 years older than her screen daughter), Paul Kersey's current girlfriend, goes with boyfriend Randy Viscovich (Jesse Dabson) to an arcade to meet up with a man named JoJo Ross (Héctor Mercado) and another buddy, Jesse Winters (Tim Russ). JoJo offers her crack cocaine behind her boyfriend’s back, and she later dies from an overdose. Having seen Erica smoke a joint with Randy while in his car the previous night, Paul suspects Randy was involved with Erica's death, so he follows him to the arcade. Randy confronts JoJo and threatens to go to the police. JoJo murders Randy to prevent this. Paul then promptly shoots JoJo, who falls onto the roof of the bumper-car ride and is electrocuted. At home, Paul receives a package indicating the sender knows he's "the vigilante," and a phone call threatening to go to the police if Paul won't meet. Paul is taken to the mansion of the secretive tabloid publisher Nathan White (John P. Ryan). Nathan says that his daughter became addicted to drugs and eventually died of an overdose, so he wants to hire Paul to wipe out the drug trade in LA. There are two major gangs competing for the local drug supply: one led by Ed Zacharias (Perry Lopez), the other by brothers Jack (Mike Moroff) and Tony Romero (Dan Ferro). Kersey accepts and Nathan supplies him with weapons and information. Meanwhile, LA detectives Sid Reiner (George Dickerson) and Phil Nozaki (Soon-Tek Oh) investigate the arcade deaths. Paul infiltrates Zacharias's manor as a party bartender. After bugging a phone, he witnesses Zacharias murder a colleague who has stolen a big deal of cocaine from the cartel's South American connection. Zacharias discovers Paul but doesn't realize why he's there. He then orders Paul to help carry out the dead body, motioning to his henchman, Al Arroyo, to kill Paul when they're done. After Paul helps put the corpse in the trunk of a car, he kills Arroyo with the car's trunk cover and escapes. Paul proceeds to kill three of Ed Zacharias's favoured hitmen at a restaurant with a bomb concealed in a wine bottle. He kills drug dealer Max Green (Tom Everett), leader of Romeros' street dealers, disguised as a sex video trader. He confronts the Romeros's top hitman Frank Bauggs (David Wolos-Fonteno) in order to find out more about their cartel, but a fight ensues and Bauggs falls off his apartment to his death. A few days later, Nathan instructs Paul to go to San Pedro, Los Angeles, where a local fisherman wharf acts as a front for Zacharias's drug operations. Breaking in, Paul kills eight more criminals and blows up the drug processing room with a bomb. Detective Nozaki reveals himself to be a corrupt cop working for Zacharias, and demands that Paul tell him who he works for. Paul refuses and kills him. He lures Zacharias and the Romero brothers into a trap, leading to a shootout in an oil field in which both cartels are completely destroyed. Paul personally kills Zacharias with a high-powered rifle. Nathan congratulates Paul, but sets him up with a car bomb. Enraged, Paul returns to the White Manor only to find a stranger who claims to be the real Nathan White; the impersonator who hired Paul was actually a third drug lord who used him to dispose of the rival cartels. Paul is approached by two cops, who arrest him, but he recognizes them as fakes, causes their car to flip over, and escapes. To get rid of Paul, the Nathan White impersonator kidnaps and uses Karen as a bait. Detective Reiner waits inside Paul's apartment to kill him out of vengeance for Nozaki's murder, but Paul knocks him out. He arms himself with a M16 with a M203 grenade launcher and goes to the meeting place designated by the drug lord, the parking lot of White's commercial building. The car rolls forward and the drug dealers spray it with bullets before realizing that Paul's not in it. Paul fires a grenade, destroying a van full of bandits, then fires another to kill Jesse as he betrays his crew and tries to drive away. Paul follows White into a roller rink and decimates the rest of his drug gang, but the drug lord escapes through a back door, still holding Karen hostage. Karen attempts to escape, but the drug lord shoots from behind and kills her. Distraught over Karen's death and realizing that White has run out of bullets, Paul fires a last grenade that finishes him off. Reiner arrives and orders him to surrender, threatening to shoot as Paul walks away. Paul replies, "Do whatever you have to", and Reiner lets him go. The story is rubbish and is a cheap knock-off but the cartoonish action sequences are brilliant. The scene where a badly sculpted mannequin of Danny Trejo is blown up is one of my favourite scenes of all time. I’ve watched it on repeat many times over and is worth watching the film for. It’s classic Cannon, Cannon at its most desperate. It lost money and was as bad as everyone expected, but it’s so incredibly bad, that it’s also extremely watchable.

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.

Death Wish II

Dir: Michael Winner

1982

**

Death Wish wasn’t quite the film it was originally intended as but it had something about it that resonated with its audience. However, Brian Garfield, author of the original Death Wish novel, was so unhappy with the film version that he wrote his own sequel, Death Sentence. "They'd made a hero out of him," he would later say, "I thought I'd shown that he'd become a very sick man." Violent crime was so high at the time that people enjoyed the spectacle of payback. Burt Lancaster, George C. Scott and Frank Sinatra, who were all offered the role of Paul Kersey in the original, all at one point or another, spoke about how relieved they were that they passed on the project. The idea to produce a sequel to Death Wish originated with producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the infamous owners of Cannon Films. They reportedly announced their plans to do so prior to actually securing the rights to the franchise. Dino De Laurentiis co-producer of the original film, threatened them with a lawsuit unless they properly purchased the rights. He negotiated payments for himself, co-producers Hal Landers and Bobby Roberts, and original author Brian Garfield. The agreement included future payments for each prospective sequel. Cannon did not want to use Garfield's book, preferring an original story by David Engelbach, Golan and Hal Landers. "We think our story is a better film story," said Golan. "You cannot call a film exploitative just because it touches on disturbing issues," said Globus. "Both Death Wish films are a valid comment on American society... the theme of street violence getting out of control is sadly more of a fact of life than it was seven years ago."  The moral that Garfield had tried to touch upon in his original novel was now well and truly lost. Bronson was offered $1.5 million to reprise the role. Jill Ireland was cast in the film because Bronson, her husband, insisted on it. She serves as both the love interest to Kersey and the voice of opposition to the death penalty. Cannon initially tasked Golan with directing the film, but Bronson insisted Michael Winner, the director of the original, should return. Winner had suffered a downturn in his career since the mid-1970s, with no box office hit since Death Wish. He agreed to return to the franchise and also took the initiative in revising the script. Winner recalled that De Laurentiis was having second thoughts about letting someone else produce the sequel, and offered to hire him to do the film for his own production company. Winner refused and De Laurentiis did not renege on his deal with Cannon. The producer did, however, start work on a clone of the film. The final result was 1982’s ‘Fighting Back’. In this follow up film, Paul Kersey has managed to recover from his shattered life and moved on, and is now dating L.A. radio reporter Geri Nichols and has moved himself and his daughter to LA, his daughter residing in a local mental hospital. One afternoon Paul's wallet is stolen by a gang at a fairground. The gang split up when Paul chases them, he corners one of them in an alley, but lets him go when he finds that he doesn’t have his wallet. The gang find Paul's home address in his wallet and later breaks into his house, where they gang rape the housekeeper, Rosario. When Paul arrives home with his daughter, he is beaten unconscious. Rosario tries to call the police, but one of the gang kills her with his crowbar. They kidnap Carol, take her to their hideout, where one of the gang members rapes her. Carol attempts to flee by running through a plate glass window, and falls onto an iron fence and is impaled. When the police arrive, Lieutenant Mankewicz asks for help identifying the muggers, but Paul refuses. After Carol's funeral, he takes a handgun to a low-rent inner city hotel as a base of operations. The next evening, he observes and follows one of the gang into an abandoned building as a drug deal is about to be made. Paul kills one of the dealers, then orders the others out, before proceeding to shoot the gang member dead. The following night, he hears screams from a couple being assaulted by four muggers, which includes another gang member, in a parking garage. Paul kills two hoodlums and wounds his mark. He follows the gang member's blood trail to an abandoned warehouse and shoots him dead. The LAPD and NYPD hear about the murders. When Kersey falls under suspicion, NYPD Detective Frank Ochoa is called in to investigate the case. Ochoa fears that Kersey, when caught, will reveal that he was released without charge eight years ago instead of being prosecuted for killing ten muggers. Ochoa meets with Mankewicz, who suspects Ochoa is giving false information to him. Ochoa intrudes into Geri's apartment and tells her about Paul's previous vigilante killing spree back in New York City. After Paul returns to his house, Geri confronts her lover about Ochoa's revelation, but he denies it. Ochoa follows Kersey to a local square where Kersey is tailing the three remaining gang members. He follows them to an abandoned park, where a major arms and drug deal is underway. A sniper scouts Kersey and attempts to kill him, but Ochoa warns Paul and shoots the sniper dead. Ochoa is mortally wounded by a gang member, while Paul kills two more. The arms dealer tries to get away but Paul shoots him, causing the criminal to drive off a cliff, while the last gang member escapes. Ochoa tells Paul to avenge him before he dies. Paul escapes while another gang member dies from his injuries after giving information about the gang to the police. Paul learns from one of Geri's colleagues that the police are preparing a tactical unit to capture the gang leader. He obtains a police scanner, and by monitoring police radio traffic, finds out when and where the arrest is going to take place. He drives to the location to kill him, but under the influence of PCP, the gang leader slashes his arm and stabs a few officers while trying to escape. Tried and found criminally insane, he is sent to a mental institution. Geri and Paul visit him, requesting an interview, but are turned down by corrupt medics. While there, Paul steals a doctor's ID card. The next night, Paul uses it to enter the asylum and confronts him. Despite being stabbed repeatedly with a scalpel, Paul manages to kill him by electrocution. A sympathetic attendant gives Paul three minutes to escape before hitting the alarm. Geri goes to Paul's house, where she finds out how he made his fake ID. Upon hearing a news report of the gang leader’s death on the radio, she realizes that Paul really is the vigilante Ochoa claimed him to be. She takes off her engagement ring and leaves him, with Paul arriving moments later. A few months later, Paul is speaking about a new architectural design. He is invited by his employer to a party, and when Paul is asked if he is able to attend, he answers: "What else would I be doing?" His shadowy figure walks in the night, followed by three gunshots. It’s a watered down version of the original in many respects but it is also far more brutal and gratuitous. Winner said the film was "the same, but different," to the original. "That's what sequels are – Rocky II, Rocky III – you don't see Sylvester Stallone move to the Congo and become a nurse. Here the look of LA is what's different. Besides – rape doesn't date!" Screenwriter David Engelbach argued the film raised "serious issues – namely, the deteriorating state of our criminal justice system. The actions of the Bronson character are dictated by the inability of the police to prevent crime, the preoccupation of the courts with technical rather than real justice, and the cancerous climate of fear in which we find ourselves today. Paul Kersey is no hero. In his pursuit of vengeance he loses the only emotional relationship of his life and by story's end has become as much a victim of crime as the thugs he leaves dead in his wake." I personally think these are excuses in order to justify a rather blood-thirsty and sensationalist neo-conservative tea-party. “Rape doesn’t date” is a quote you don’t hear very often from a director/producer and it pretty much tells you all you need to know about the film and the people who made it. David Engelbach admitted that he was "somewhat appalled" by the final film and how it differed from his original script. He felt that the rape scenes were added so that Michael Winner could "get his rocks off". Nasty stuff. To think that Natalie Wood nearly became involved in the casting. I do like the music though. Isaac Hayes was recommended by the producers of the film to compose the score but Michael Winner chose former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page who was his next door neighbor at the time. Still, you can’t have Death Wish 3 without Death Wish 2 and from here on the series got terribly good.