{"id":1269,"date":"2024-07-23T22:07:07","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T22:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:40:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:40:47","slug":"death-wish-4-the-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/23\/death-wish-4-the-crackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Wish 4: The Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Death Wish 4: The Crackdown <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon Films\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, a rape scene, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: J. Lee Thompson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gail Morgan Hickman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Bisharat, Paul McCallum and Valentine McCallum\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gideon Porath\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 6, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charles Bronson, Kay Lenz, John P. Ryan, Perry Lopez, George Dickerson, Soon-Teck Oh, Dana Barron, Mike Moroff, Dan Ferro, Danny Trejo, Jesse Dabson, Tim Russ, Peter Sherayko, James Purcell, Michael Russo, Daniel Sabia, Hector Mercado, David Fonteno, Tom Everett.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $6.8 million (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0After the pure awesomeness of the previous installment, there was very little chance that Death Wish 4: The Crackdown<\/strong> would measure up and it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s still pretty good- hey, it\u2019s a Cannon film with Charles Bronson! It just feels a bit different than its predecessors. It may be because Michael Winner didn\u2019t direct this one (he was busy with another film). He\u2019s replaced by J. Lee Thompson, a director who\u2019s worked with Bronson on several occasions (10 to Midnight, The Evil That Men Do and Murphy\u2019s Law). He does a respectable job with Death Wish 4<\/strong>. It contains plenty of cool action scenes and vigilante violence. That\u2019s what really counts, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The main difference in this entry is that Bronson\u2019s character is acting more like a hitman than a vigilante this time out. Yes, he wants to avenge the death of a loved one, but there\u2019s more to his rampage than simple revenge. He\u2019s wiping out drug dealers at the behest of a millionaire who\u2019s holding something over his head. So the premise is a bit different in Death Wish 4<\/strong>, but certain other things remain the same. For example, the \u201cKiss of Death Wish\u201d rule still applies. Well, it wouldn\u2019t be a true Death Wish movie without it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Paul Kersey is back in L.A. and in a committed relationship with journalist Karen Sheldon (Lenz, House). She has a teenage daughter Erica (Barron, National Lampoon\u2019s Vacation) who adores Paul and aspires to become an architect just like him. Then, the inevitable tragedy strikes. Erica dies from a drug overdose. Kersey tracks down the dealer that gave her the stuff and kills him. A few days later, he receives an anonymous note from somebody who knows what he did. He\u2019s summoned to the mansion of newspaper tycoon Nathan White (Ryan, Avenging Force) who makes Kersey an offer he shouldn\u2019t refuse. He threatens to go to the cops with what he knows about the murdered drug dealer unless Kersey helps him rid L.A. of two major drug gangs. White\u2019s daughter also died of an overdose and he wants to put a stop to the dirtbags that sell drugs to teens. He promises to supply Kersey with whatever he needs, be it weapons or information. Naturally, the vigilante accepts his not-so-modest proposal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are two major drug gangs operating in L.A. One is run by Ed Zacharias (Lopez, Chinatown); the other by the Romero brothers, Jack (Moroff, From Dusk Till Dawn) and Tony (Ferro, Blow). An uneasy peace exists between the two gangs, so it won\u2019t take too much effort on Kersey\u2019s part to ignite a war between them. He starts by blowing up three of Zacharias\u2019 best hitmen (one of whom is played by Danny Trejo) in a restaurant with a wine bottle bomb. Say what? Yes, a wine bottle containing a bomb. It would seem that Kersey has gained a few new skills since the last movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0His next stop is a video store where he takes out the leader (Everett, Hollywood Vice Squad) of the Romeros\u2019 street dealers. Kersey follows that up by throwing their top hit man, the opera-loving Frank Bauggs (Fonteno), from the top floor of a high-rise building.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For a change, the police appear to be actively involved in the case. A couple of detectives, Reiner (Dickerson, Blue Velvet) and Nozaki (Oh, Missing in Action 2), are investigating the murder of the first drug dealer when they\u2019re taken off that case and reassigned to the ongoing slaughter of the drug gang members. It\u2019s only a matter of time until they zero in on Kersey as the man responsible. It\u2019s also a safe bet that Zacharias has a man inside the police department, keeping him informed. The face-off between Zacharias and the Romeros finally happens just over an hour into Death Wish 4<\/strong> which can only mean there\u2019s something else going on. I\u2019ll put it this way, NEVER trust any character played by Ryan. That is all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know that the Death Wish flicks aren\u2019t high art, but that doesn\u2019t give the makers carte blanche to deliver a faulty narrative. Specifically, they mishandle Lenz\u2019 character by dropping her from a good bit of the movie. What\u2019s more, they initially make it seem like she\u2019ll be a major part of action by having her character write a series of articles on the local drug trade. She convinces her editor to okay it, bribes a young dealer to provide her with information and visits a morgue to see the bodies of young people killed because of drugs. We don\u2019t see her again until near the end of the movie and that\u2019s only because the script requires it. Again, the \u201cKiss of Death Wish\u201d rule.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Granted, that\u2019s a somewhat grievous misstep, but it doesn\u2019t derail Death Wish 4<\/strong>. Nor does the fact that Kersey has become an expert at killing punks. Times have changed and audiences aren\u2019t likely to be thrilled by him using just a handgun so he uses automatic weapons and explosive devices. He did pretty much the same thing in Death Wish 3, that\u2019s true. Except now, he\u2019s more of a one-man army than a mere vigilante. While I like that kind of action movie, it\u2019s far removed from the original concept of the Death Wish movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Death Wish 4<\/strong> does have a cool supporting cast (not as cool as 3, but still pretty cool), but the acting isn\u2019t all that great. Bronson does fine because he just does his thing. In other words, his fans know what to expect from him and he doesn\u2019t disappoint here. But why criticize the acting? Nobody sees a movie like Death Wish 4<\/strong> for its stellar acting or writing. They go for the action and violence. There\u2019s enough of both to go around. It\u2019s a solid B-movie and a decent choice for a Saturday night action flick.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon Films\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, a rape scene, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: J. Lee Thompson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gail Morgan Hickman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Bisharat, Paul McCallum and Valentine McCallum\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gideon Porath\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 6, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charles Bronson, Kay Lenz, John P. Ryan, Perry Lopez, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1604,"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-1269","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-4-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\/1269","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=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1894,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions\/1894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}