{"id":1265,"date":"2024-07-23T21:42:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T21:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:39:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:39:46","slug":"death-wish-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/23\/death-wish-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Wish II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Death Wish II <\/strong>(1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Filmways Pictures\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, rape, graphic nudity, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Winner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Engelbach\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jimmy Page\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Thomas Del Ruth and Richard H. Kline\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 14, 1982 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Vincent Gardenia, J.D. Cannon, Anthony Franciosa, Robin Sherwood,\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $16.1 million (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Death Wish II<\/strong> 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 \u2026. SWEET! The fact that they were both super-violent made it all the sweeter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It was my dad\u2019s idea to check out a Sunday afternoon matinee of Death Wish II<\/strong>. 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<\/strong>. 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\u2019s not to love? This sequel is decidedly sleazier and more brutal than its 1974 predecessor. Bronson\u2019s 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 \u2026.. COOL!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Set 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\u2019s 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….<\/p>\n

\u00a0During an afternoon outing, a gang of scumbags steals Kersey\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kersey 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\u2019t 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\u2019s a scene that pretty much sums up the whole tone of Death Wish II<\/strong>. He shoots one of the dealers and chases away the others while making Stomper remain. When he sees a cross around the creep\u2019s neck he asks him if he believes in Jesus then tells him that he\u2019s about to meet him. BANG! Kersey shoots him once more while he\u2019s lying on the floor and leaves him for the rats.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He 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<\/sup> 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\u2019t want it getting out that they had him and let him go. Bad press, you know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, 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\u2019s ass. With his dying breath, he tells the vigilante to \u201cget the mother f***er that shot me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now it\u2019s 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\u2019ve described practically the whole movie. I\u2019ll stop here suffice to say Kersey isn\u2019t so easily deterred from doing what he feels he must do. And he\u2019ll do it no matter what the cost.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A few random thoughts on Death Wish II<\/strong>. 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, \u201cHe saved our lives, dammit! Where the hell were you guys, giving out parking tickets?\u201d The whole theater burst into applause. The couple proceeds to give the cops fake descriptions before the man threatens to \u201cgive the press interviews [the police] won\u2019t believe\u201d if they don\u2019t let him get to a hospital for medical treatment. Again, applause. Somebody shouted \u201cRight on!\u201d It might or might not have been me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The violence in Death Wish II<\/strong> 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 \u201cboom box\u201d by shooting him right through it. In another scene, he says \u201cgoodbye\u201d before shooting one of his daughter\u2019s killers dead.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I should probably be repulsed by Death Wish II<\/strong> like many of my fellow critics from back in the day. I\u2019m not. This movie, like its main character, is totally bad ass! Bronson delivers one of his trademark stone-faced performances, but it\u2019s just right for a movie like this. Winner didn\u2019t have high aspirations when he made Death Wish II<\/strong>. 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\u2019s not high art, people. It\u2019s a Bronson vehicle! What don\u2019t 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.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death Wish II (1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Filmways Pictures\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, rape, graphic nudity, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Winner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Engelbach\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jimmy Page\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Thomas Del Ruth and Richard H. Kline\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 14, 1982 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Vincent Gardenia, J.D. Cannon, Anthony Franciosa, Robin Sherwood,\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Death-Wish-II-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}