Synopsis:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures presents director Eli Roth’s reimagining of the 1974 revenge thriller Death Wish. Dr. Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) is a surgeon who only sees the aftermath of his city’s violence when it is rushed into his ER – until his wife (Elisabeth Shue) and college-age daughter (Camila Morrone) are viciously attacked in their suburban home. With the police overloaded with crimes, Paul, burning for revenge, hunts his family’s assailants to deliver justice. As the anonymous slayings of criminals grabs the media’s attention, the city wonders if this deadly avenger is a guardian angel or a grim reaper. Fury and fate collide in the intense action-thriller Death Wish.
What We Thought:
I wish the Death Wish remake wasn’t a remake. If it was just a movie about a doctor that takes the law into his own hands I would have liked it more. I liked it, but it’s not Death Wish to me.
The film has a lot of positives. The kills in it are pretty gruesome. There are some great head shots and gore and I like that. Bruce Willis is an action veteran and director Eli Roth comes from a horror background so the level of action and blood works for me. The audience reacts well to the violence and cringes at times which is great.
I like that it has a message about guns, but it’s not completely biased. They talk about gun laws and what it takes to get a gun legally. It also shows how easy it is to get a gun illegally. They could have very easily pandered to an audience about how bad guns are despite the main character using them to get his revenge.
I thought Bruce Willis was good. It’s not one of his iconic roles, but it’s better than a lot of his performances in films that have been going straight to video lately. He reminds us why he is and still can be a leading man. He’s funny and you understand his reasoning. The movie has comedic elements because Willis can still crack a one liner with ease. It feels like a throwback to the action movies of the 1980s and 1990s I grew up with.
My biggest complaint is that Willis would have been caught after the first shooting or after any shooting. At no point does he wear gloves to hide his fingerprints. He’s a doctor in a hospital filled with rubber gloves, but he never once uses them. He loads the weapon and gets fingerprints all over the shell casings. At the first shooting, forensics would have shown his prints on the shell casings picked up at the scene. Plus every other place in the movie.
At the same time he leaves fingerprints everywhere, he’s aware enough to grab a hard drive of security footage to destroy it? Also in the movie he gets a slide burn (which you never see in films). It’s his first time in an active shooting so he doesn’t hold the weapon properly and the slide cuts his hand. So in a movie accurate enough to destroy security footage and a slide burn, it’s not accurate enough to have him wear gloves?
Death Wish is Eli Roth’s most mainstream movie. Bruce Willis is good in it and it has style, I just really wish it wasn’t a Death Wish remake. The Charles Bronson film is a classic action flick. Name this something else and I fully support it. As is, it’s still…
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Cast & Crew:
- Bruce Willis
- Eli Roth
- Elisabeth Shue
- Dean Norris
- Vincent D’Onofrio
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