{"id":2261,"date":"2024-08-13T19:07:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T19:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2261"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:20:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:20:43","slug":"the-evil-that-men-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/13\/the-evil-that-men-do\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evil That Men Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Evil That Men Do <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence and torture, brief nudity, suggested sexual content, language, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: J. Lee Thompson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John M. Crowther and David Lee Henry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ken Thorne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Javier Ruvalcaba Cruz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 21, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charles Bronson, Theresa Saldana, Joseph Maher, Jose Ferrer, Rene Enriquez, John Glover, Raymond St. Jacques, Antoinette Bower, Mischa Hausserman, Jorge Luke, Joe Seneca, Nicole Thomas, Enrique Lucero, Jorge Humberto Robles, Roger Cudney.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $13.1M (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0My most recent viewing of the Charles Bronson actioner The Evil That Men Do<\/strong> left me with a burning question. Is it a Charles Bronson movie or a movie with Charles Bronson? Let me explain. It\u2019s based on a novel by R. Lance Hill. Is Bronson who the author had in mind to play the character of Holland or did the actor simply cast himself after he purchased the film rights? I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s the latter. I can\u2019t say whether or not he stays faithful to the character as written by Hill. It appears to me he\u2019s just being the Charles Bronson we\u2019ve all come to expect. It\u2019s fine with me either way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Evil That Men Do<\/strong> is the last movie Bronson made for a major studio. That is to say, it\u2019s the last time he made a film for a studio other than Cannon in the 80s. Working with his usual collaborator, director J. Lee Thompson (10 to Midnight), it\u2019s a gritty piece about an assassin coming out of retirement to avenge the death of a friend at the hands of a sadistic piece of slime known as \u201cThe Doctor\u201d (Maher, Heaven Can Wait).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The film opens with the Doctor, an expert on the art of torture, demonstrating his skills on a journalist who wrote an unflattering story about him. He has the guy stripped naked and electrocuted in front of an audience of government officials. Word of his murder reaches ex-assassin Holland in the Cayman Islands where he\u2019s enjoying a life of peace and quiet. He doesn\u2019t want to get involved at first, but he changes his mind after seeing video testimony of the Doctor\u2019s surviving victims. Their stories are unpleasant to say the least.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Holland goes to Guatemala where the Doctor (real name Clement Molloch) is based for the moment. He\u2019s just been informed government leaders plan to arrest him. This means Holland has a limited time to find and kill the Doctor before he relocates to an unknown location. Trying to keep a low profile, Holland travels to Guatemala in the guise of a family man on vacation with his family, wife Rhiana (Saldana, Raging Bull) and young daughter Sarah (Thomas in her sole credit), actually the widow and child of his murdered friend. Rhiana wants to see her husband\u2019s killer pay for what he did.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Doctor isn\u2019t an easy man to get to. He has bodyguards- Randolph (Jacques, They Live), Karl (Hausserman, Die Hard with a Vengeance) and chauffeur Cillero (Luke, Clear and Present Danger)- who never leave his side. He\u2019s also unusually close to his sister Claire (Bower, Prom Night), a lesbian who enjoys watching her brother work. Man, that\u2019s one f***ed up family. It\u2019s a good thing Holland likes a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Originally, Charlie\u2019s wife Jill Ireland was supposed to co-star, but she dropped out to give her role to Saldana who was looking to re-establish herself as an actress after a near-fatal knife attack by a stalker in \u201982. It\u2019s not the most auspicious of comebacks, but it\u2019s nice to see her back in action after the incident that led to her co-founding the Victims for Victims organization. The late actress was also instrumental in getting the 1990 anti-stalking law passed as well as the Driver\u2019s Privacy Protection Act in \u201994.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Evil That Men Do<\/strong> also co-stars Jose Ferrer (Dune) as the mutual friend who informs Holland of the murder, Rene Enriquez (Hill Street Blues) as the friend of the mutual friend who provides Holland with info and John Glover (52 Pick-Up) as a corrupt American politician involved with the Doctor. It\u2019s a pretty cool line-up. They all do a serviceable job in their roles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Charles Bronson movies, by definition, are super-violent. In his career, he racked up a body count that\u2019s easily in the triple digits. The Evil That Men Do<\/strong> is easily his most brutal, bloodthirsty film. While he doesn\u2019t mow down scores of punks, he does quite a number on a few deserving souls. While visiting a dive bar with Rhiana, he deals with a local tough by crushing his testicles with his bare hand. YE-OWCH! I think every guy in the theater felt that one. I even saw my dad wince a little.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I like The Evil That Men Do<\/strong>, but I\u2019m not sure if we\u2019re getting the whole story. At the beginning, a Mossad team has the Doctor under surveillance. They try to take him out with a car bomb. Their attempt fails and the agent rigging the bomb dies in the explosion. After that, we never see or hear from the Israelis again. What gives? Did they play a bigger role in the book? It seems like there\u2019s more story to tell here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s far from perfect, but The Evil That Men Do<\/strong> is a decent Bronson actioner that benefits from its dirty, dusty Mexican locations. One scene in particular looks like something out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. It has a fair amount of action including a nifty car chase. Maher is suitably hateful as the villain, a real sicko who gets exactly what he deserves at the end. Honestly, I can think of worse ways to kill 90 minutes.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Evil That Men Do (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence and torture, brief nudity, suggested sexual content, language, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: J. Lee Thompson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John M. Crowther and David Lee Henry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ken Thorne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Javier Ruvalcaba Cruz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 21, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Charles Bronson, Theresa Saldana, Joseph […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Evil-That-Men-Do-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\/2261","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=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3211,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions\/3211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}