-My girlfriend after she woke up to find me watching this this morning
Part four of a franchise that lasted five films in total, "Death Wish 4: The Crackdown" was directed by long-time Charles Bronson director J. Lee Thompson and came out in 1987. Thompson and Bronson did 9 movies together, including one of my favorite Bronson movies, "10 To Midnight," which I saw, for some reason, a LOT as a kid. I think it was one of the few tapes we had.
Anyway, the movie follows Bronson (whose character is clearly hated by God because everybody he loves gets murdered or beaten at the start of these movies) after the death of his girlfriend's daughter. Then he gets recruited to murder some drug dealers, which he does with FULL FORCE (he was 65 when he filmed this, by the way), before he's double-crossed and then some other stuff happens and then it ends. But not before Bronson VAPORIZES an old dude bad guy by using a rocket launcher on his gold-chain-wearing ass from about 20 feet away. Check it:
"Death Wish 4" has some cool '80s sets like an arcade, a roller rink, and a VHS rental store! It also has cameos by that bald guy who was Mulder's boss on "The X-Files," the girl who played Audrey in the very first "Vacation" movie, the guy who played a black Vulcan on Star Trek: Voyager, that tall bro who was in charge of the odd street gang in Return of the Living Dead 3, and Danny Trejo. Trejo gets blown up by a bomb hidden in a wine bottle. It's nuts.
Here's the trailer:
And here's a clip of JUST the murders that Bronson has a hand in:
My copy of the VHS tape has a lot of wear, but the cassette played just fine. I picked it up at a used section in our local Barnes & Noble, which is an odd thing for a Barnes & Noble to have, I think. It was originally $3, then became $1.50, and then I bought it at $.60! Here's the box:
I'm really itching to watch the other 4 now. I remember catching a bit of part one waaaaay back and it scared the living pee out of me.
Nice work my man. I think Death Wish 5 is the one I've seen most recently and it features and even older Bronson mowing down gangsters in his neighborhood while a friend literally holds a box of automatic ammo for him to burn through. Have you seen the original Mechanic with Bronson? It's on Netflix Instant right now, pretty rad.
ReplyDeleteThanks, dude! I have NOT seen the Mechanic. I haven't seen MUCH Bronson, actually. Just a handful of the movies he's known for and one or two weirdo flicks like 10 to Midnight. But after seeing Death Wish today, it really got me craving more of that guy's stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, cause I expected this to be goofy and entirely trashy exploitation revenge stuff, but it wasn't, which was a nice surprise.
I love Bronson SO MUCH. To the point where I want to name two of my sons Charles and Bronson, no lie. And if you're looking for trashy exploitation Bronson stuff, I highly recommend "Death Wish III." He takes on an entire street gang. But that shit is depraved as hell.
ReplyDeleteJ. Lee Thompson had a fascinating career, too; he was an acclaimed director early on (he made "The Guns of Navarone" AND the original "Cape Fear"!), but spent his last few active decades churning out some real stinkers. A lot of the Bronson is great ("St. Ives"!), a lot of it bad ("Murphy's Law"). He also directed "Firewalker"!
I saw Death Wish III with you, Jesse! It's like you predicted the future! Also, I want to come down and watch all your Bronson movies with you. IN A ROW.
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