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Too much of everything

As Good As It Gets

Blistering performances.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

"Death Wish" was the film that made Charles Bronson into an overnight star and a box office draw. He had made several movies in Europe for a while and became a star over there. He had worked with the British director Michael Winner on three previous occasions and the films they made are great. The above film is their best collaboration. Released in 1974, "Death Wish" pulls no punches in depicting the efforts of Paul Kersey who kills off as many muggers and street punks as he can. These events have resulted after his wife is murdered and his daughter viciously attacked. The audience is truly on the side of Bronson as he takes the law into his own hands. New York is the ideal setting and location for this film. It works to the films advantage to be made in winter time. This adds to the gritty and harsh look of the film - shades of "The French Connection." Charles Bronson was never an actor in the usual sense of the word but his image is perfect for his role here. The supporting cast are excellent, look out for Jeff Goldblum in an early role as a mugger. The plot is fairly streamlined which is an advantage, as the film is kept on an even keel without any unnecessary subplots. The violence isn't particularly pleasant, especially at the beginning of the film. It is no wonder that the B.B.F.C refused to grant "Death Wish" a video certificate when all videos considered for release in the early 80s in Britain, had to be reclassified. As a result, "Death Wish" was exceptionally hard to obtain. Then in 2000, the film suddenly turned up on video, albeit in a censored form. Now on DVD, we have the uncensored version. There are some great action scenes along the way but "Death Wish" is more than that, it is making both political and social comments about vigilantes and law and order in general. The dialogue is certainly above average, considering the films content. It could have easily been the case of just producing cliché- ridden stuff but luckily, this doesn't happen. It is debatable whether Bronson is slightly unhinged in some way, as the vigilante. I would say it is more likely he is expressing the anger and injustice he feels after what has happened to his family and to his way of life. The sequels that followed are pretty good but the original is still my favourite. A classic film of 1970s American cinema and not to be missed.

This movie tapped into what people's feelings were as far as the crime issue goes during that time. Unless you lived in that era, it is hard to see how a film like this could be so controversial at the time. But the very thought of an ordinary citizen taking the law into his own hands was unheard of. After many years of insipid sequels and countless imitators, Death Wish still shines like a gem. This is one of Charles Bronson's best performances and he is very convincing and believable as the conscientious objector turned vigilante. His later performances in the subsequent sequels were as emotional man involved as a wet dish rag. Steven Keats is excellent as the beleaguered son in law, Jack, and Vincent Gardenia shines as the police inspector Frank Ochoa who is determined to apprehend the vigilante.The movie was and is controversial. The liberals hate it, the conservatives love it. The move has been attacked as exaggerating the danger of urban crime. It doesn't. I lived in the very area and at the very time of the movie. Virtually everyone I knew (including myself) had some kind of incident with a street criminal. The movie is not realistic with regard to what would have happened to Paul Kersy once found out. He would have been arrested and charged with illegal possession of a firearm, and other felonies. He would have been attacked on the editorial page of the New York Times, by Mayor Lindsey, the police commissioner and slew of newspaper columnists and TV commentators. The families of the slain criminals would have sued him, most likely with William Kunstler as the lawyer. There would have been a relentless and effective campaign of personal destruction directed at Paul culminating in a trial. So in this sense the movie fails as social commentary, because it doesn't confront the real issues of crime and punishment and urban politics. But it succeeds splendidly as an emotional cathartic.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

Michael Winner's gritty slice of vigilante cinema has finally been released here after twenty-five years of unavailability. Like most films of the period that were "banned" as such, seen today this is relatively tame viewing material which has had its effect lessened by what has come since. Nonetheless, Winner's film is still pretty good viewing, a movie that actually has something to say about modern society and man's place in it. It's a film that gave me food for thought, in any case. Unlike the later THE EXTERMINATOR and even DEATH WISH II, this is a film that tones down the sensationalism to concentrate on the morals behind the story.Firstly, the movie is not as unpleasant as I had imagined. The build-up to the actual attack on the wife and daughter is worse than the event itself, and thankfully Winner skims over the gory details (or maybe they've just been cut out). Bronson's subsequent vigilante crimes on the dark streets of New York are staged well, with crisp photography giving the film a realistic, gritty edge to it. They're also invariably exciting, and without any unnecessary stylish trimmings; Bronson shoots people with an aim to kill, and that's it. There are no over-the-top gun battles a la John Woo; here it's straightforward cold-blooded murder, shot in a matter-of-fact way.Bronson here is actually very good as the grieving husband and father who takes justice in the only way he knows how; the script gives him unusual characterisation which makes you feel for him. For instance, he doesn't just go out and start killing people; it's a gradual process, and scenes of Bronson being physically sick after shooting a man in the stomach remind us that he is human after all. The supporting cast are uniformly great, and watch out for a very young-looking Jeff Goldblum in his first film role as a thug.So, not only is this a very slick thriller, it's also a film with important things to say. Winner is definitely behind Bronson in his actions, and shows the police as the manipulated buffoons that they really are, although he is sure to show both sides of the coin. No doubt the viewer will find himself siding with Bronson over his actions also. An essential slice of the hard-edged world of the '70s, this movie would have been unthinkable back in the peace-loving '60s.

Watching this movie again more than 40 years after it first came out is interesting. While it can still touch a nerve somewhere deep down inside, on the surface at least, it seems heavily clichéd to the point of being cloying. It seems heavy-handed and in terms of its style very heavily dated. I do not think it has stood up all that well to the test of time. Anybody who saw this as an adolescent in the 70's should have enough life experience by now to know it is almost as much of a fantasy as Star Wars. Even where crimes of the nature seen at the beginning of this movie do occur, in real life they don't look, or more importantly, feel the way they are depicted here. It would be interesting to see a thoughtful modern-day remake, but it is unlikely anybody will do a thoughtful one. Instead, you only get even more fantastic, exploitative renditions, in the light of which, it is no wonder America has become a filled with foolish, immature, paranoid gun-crazies that can't go to the bathroom anymore without slinging an assault rifle. As Roger Ebert once said while discussing film noir, "no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic." Hell, maybe the answer to this movie in 2015 is a movie about a "vigilante" who shoots gun-crazies to prove how ridiculous they are. Under these circumstances, I give this one a mere six.