Death Wish II (1982) Filmways Pictures/Action RT: 89 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence, rape, graphic nudity, drugs) Director: Michael Winner Screenplay: David Engelbach Music: Jimmy Page Cinematography: Thomas Del Ruth and Richard H. Kline Release date: May 14, 1982 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Vincent Gardenia, J.D. Cannon, Anthony Franciosa, Robin Sherwood, Silvana Gallardo, Ben Frank, Robert F. Lyons, Michael Prince, Thomas Duffy, Kevyn Major Howard, Stuart K. Robinson, Laurence Fishburne III, E. Lamont Johnson, Charles Cyphers, Drew Snyder, Paul Lambert. Box Office: $16.1 million (US)
Rating: ****
Death Wish II is the first installment of the series that I saw at the movies. I saw it the exact the same weekend as Conan the Barbarian which made for a banner weekend for this 14YO movie geek. Two R-rated movies in the same weekend …. SWEET! The fact that they were both super-violent made it all the sweeter.
It was my dad’s idea to check out a Sunday afternoon matinee of Death Wish II. Who was I to argue with the man? Interestingly enough, it was showing at the same theater where we saw Conan the day before (I sure do miss the good old City Line Theater). It was an unusually large crowd for a matinee, but even more interesting was how they reacted to the movie. Every time Charles Bronson killed a punk, everybody clapped and cheered. Each time somebody got in a dig against the flawed legal system, the audience clapped and cheered. A few audience members even voiced their approval of all that was going on in Death Wish II. I soon got the idea I was sitting in a theater filled with psychos and potential vigilantes. I loved every minute of it. Now this is what going to the movies is all about! A sleazy, violent exploitation flick, a rowdy audience and Bronson in full-on bad ass mode, what’s not to love? This sequel is decidedly sleazier and more brutal than its 1974 predecessor. Bronson’s character is angrier, tougher and more sadistic this time around as well. As a fan of vigilante flicks and Bronson, I have just one word ….. COOL!
Set a few years after the events of the first film, Paul Kersey (Bronson) now lives in L.A. and seems to have picked up the pieces of his life. He’s a successful architect and is seeing Geri Nichols (his real life spouse Ireland), a reporter currently doing an anti-death penalty piece for a local radio station. His daughter Carol (Sherwood, Blow Out), still traumatized from being raped, has recently begun to speak again. Life is okay until….
During an afternoon outing, a gang of scumbags steals Kersey’s wallet. He goes after one of them and teaches him a lesson in manners. In retaliation, they show up at his house where they beat and rape his housekeeper (Gallardo, Windwalker) while waiting for him to return. They ambush Kersey the moment he walks through the door. They kill the housekeeper then kidnap Carol so she can’t talk to the police. They take her to their hideout where one of them rapes her. She tries to escape, but impales herself on a fence after jumping through a window.
Kersey is righteously pissed off and wants revenge against the creeps, his own brand of revenge. He rents a room at a fleabag hotel and starts hanging around Skid Row looking for the punks. Surprisingly, it isn’t difficult to find them. He spots Stomper (Howard, Full Metal Jacket) with a bunch of drug dealers and follows them to an abandoned, rat-infested motel. It’s a scene that pretty much sums up the whole tone of Death Wish II. He shoots one of the dealers and chases away the others while making Stomper remain. When he sees a cross around the creep’s neck he asks him if he believes in Jesus then tells him that he’s about to meet him. BANG! Kersey shoots him once more while he’s lying on the floor and leaves him for the rats.
He manages to take out another one of the hoods, Jiver (Robinson, Rocky II), the next night while he and some other creeps are assaulting a couple of tourists in a parking garage. At this point, the LAPD realizes they have a vigilante on their hands. The police commissioner (Franciosa, Across 110th Street) suggests asking the NYPD for advice on how to handle the matter since they had a similar situation some years back. Lt. Ochoa (Gardenia) immediately realizes it has to be Kersey. His superiors, looking to cover their asses, order him to L.A. to deal with the situation. They don’t want it getting out that they had him and let him go. Bad press, you know.
Meanwhile, Kersey tracks down the remaining three scumbags- Nirvana (Duffy, Out for Justice), Cutter (Fishburne, The Matrix) and Punkcut (Johnson, Foxes)- and follows them to a gun buy. Ochoa follows Kersey and before you know it, all hell breaks loose with a huge shootout. Kersey nails two of his targets, but Nirvana gets away. Ochoa dies from a gunshot wound sustained while saving Kersey’s ass. With his dying breath, he tells the vigilante to “get the mother f***er that shot me”.
Now it’s down to just one guy, but the police manage to arrest the PCP-crazed killer before Kersey can get him. He ends up in the same psychiatric hospital where Jeri is doing a piece on treating the criminally insane instead of executing them. WOW! I just now realized that I’ve described practically the whole movie. I’ll stop here suffice to say Kersey isn’t so easily deterred from doing what he feels he must do. And he’ll do it no matter what the cost.
A few random thoughts on Death Wish II. UK-born director Michael Winner knows exactly what buttons to push in order to get a response from audiences. When the police question the tourists about the vigilante that killed their assailants, they refuse to provide a description. When pressed, the man says, “He saved our lives, dammit! Where the hell were you guys, giving out parking tickets?” The whole theater burst into applause. The couple proceeds to give the cops fake descriptions before the man threatens to “give the press interviews [the police] won’t believe” if they don’t let him get to a hospital for medical treatment. Again, applause. Somebody shouted “Right on!” It might or might not have been me.
The violence in Death Wish II is really cool. During the gun buy shootout at an empty park, one of the hoods tries to escape while shielding his face with a big radio (gotta love the 80s!). Bronson gives new meaning to the term “boom box” by shooting him right through it. In another scene, he says “goodbye” before shooting one of his daughter’s killers dead.
I should probably be repulsed by Death Wish II like many of my fellow critics from back in the day. I’m not. This movie, like its main character, is totally bad ass! Bronson delivers one of his trademark stone-faced performances, but it’s just right for a movie like this. Winner didn’t have high aspirations when he made Death Wish II. He just wanted the audience to have a good time. Okay, so it wallows in sleaze and unpleasantness. The overall acting is passable at best. It’s not high art, people. It’s a Bronson vehicle! What don’t you get? I had a blast seeing this flick with an enthusiastic audience. Moreover, it affirmed my love for the genre and the series and Bronson flicks in general.
