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Death Wish Remake

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    #62
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    TerrorFirmer wrote: »
    Just watched it today and maybe because I expected so little from it, but i found it a pretty good watch too - straight forward and as predictable as your next step but very satisfying and pretty brutal in spots.
    Yup. Loved the
    "tactical furniture"
    at the end.


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    #63
    super_furry
    Registered Users Posts: 27,322 ✭✭✭✭super_furry


    The thing about Death Wish for me is that New York was the actual star of that film. The ****hole New York of the 70s that no longer exists. Not sure how you go about remaking that.


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    #64
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,671 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    super_furry wrote: »
    The thing about Death Wish for me is that New York was the actual star of that film. The ****hole New York of the 70s that no longer exists. Not sure how you go about remaking that.

    I haven't seen it, but I think the remake is set in Chicago. But I agree, the original is about a very specific time and place. If you are a nice, respectable white middle class liberal in America today I just can't see how you would ever get close enough to a member of the underprivileged class to get raped and murdered by them. The American underclasses are very carefully segregated and mostly engage in crime on themselves these days. People like Bronson's character in the original all live in the suburbs or high rises now and neither they nor their politicians are soft on crime.


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    #65
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 15,814 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Toying with watching this and decided to rewatch the Bronson films first. Watching the original a couple weeks back and it is a far more intelligent and layered film than its reputation suggests, Death Wish is one of Sunday Times restaurant critic Michael Winner's better films, repugnant no doubt with one of the most striking and shocking scenes of sexual assault in cinema due, not to the gratuitous nature but rather the immediate and understated feel of it.

    Playing out rather familiarly, Death Wish is often cited as right-wing reactionary gun porn but that belittles the genuine wit and intelligence on display with the film never glamorising violence or treating sexual assault as titillation, as so many others have mistekenly done.

    Bronson's one-man murder mission may be one note but it's quitely believable as he's not so much interested in revenge as he is acting out his pent-up frustrations, there is an argument to be made for the film's depiction of sexual repression in the way the film fetishises the gun Bronson uses but that feels more accidental than deliberate. What is most startling and telling is that Bronson never even comes across the men who attacked his family. Their crime goes unpunished and in the hands of anyone other than Winner one feels that this could have been a deliberate and sustained attack on the failings of the American justice system.

    Death Wish is an easy film to mock, it's been so often imitated that much of its impact feels overtly familiar but beneath the grubby exterior, there is quite a bit going on. It's thrilling in a way that very few rape-revenge films are and it set the template for many to follow. Alongside Ms. 45 it's one of the few examples of the genre that genuinely works.


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    #66
    2smiggy
    Registered Users Posts: 20,076 ✭✭✭✭2smiggy


    watched it over the weekend, much better than i thought it would be. predictable and very gory , but fairly enjoyable !!


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    #67
    Dr Brown
    Registered Users Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭Dr Brown


    Death Wish 4 is the best of the original series.




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    #68
    Brief_Lives
    Registered Users Posts: 2,912 ✭✭✭Brief_Lives




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    #69
    JoeA3
    Registered Users Posts: 7,414 ✭✭✭JoeA3


    I saw this tonight.

    My god. It’s passable popcorn made-for-TV fare. I’d put it in the same bucket as something like an episode of CSI or Blue Bloods. Nothing at all taxing. Lots of stereotypical Bad guys. Good guy wins in the end, that sort of stuff.

    Bruce Willis seems to sleepwalk though the whole thing. In the first 20 minutes I excused it. He’s just lost his wife, etc. John McClane will be with us soon. But no. He’s like that for the whole movie. Literally phoning it in for the paycheque. He’s almost in a coma! I couldn’t help but wonder how much better this might have been if Liam Neeson took this role.

    Then his brother was a strange character. It seemed to be setup that he was going to be implicated as a bad guy but no... that story just went nowhere. And Tom Selleck’s Dad turned up too kinda randomly as his father in law, again in a half baked role.

    Hank from Breaking Bad plays himself. That was the highlight for me tbh. Oh there’s Hank, he’s the same as he is in Breaking Bad!

    This movie has zero re-watchability. It has nothing going for it. If Taken cropped up on TV tonight (as it often seems to) I’d probably end up half watching it again. I’d be surprised if this movie ever appears on TV.


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