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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

Who is this character, who's family suffered from the hands of lawless criminals, and who wanders the nights in search for some of those criminals, to have his revenge? Who is this character, who is a wealthy gentleman during the day, while the "vengeance" itself during the night? Batman? No... it is Paul Kersey played by Charles Bronson in a Michael Winner 1974 film Death Wish.

After reading about Death Wish in Quentin Tarantino's book Cinema Speculation I was under the impression that it would be a slightly different movie. It seemed to me that the film will be about this father guy who gets his daughter either taken, or killed, by some goons. And ultimately about this father guy finding those goons and doing some nasty cinematic violence to them. That would have been a rather satisfactory experience.

I was not expecting quite what I saw. First of all I was not expecting to see Jeff Goldblum ( the same guy from Jurassic Park that says "Life will... ah... find a way." ) rape a girl. Like, the movie is trying to recreate the horror rape scene from Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange. And it pulls off a rather good imitation of it.

I was also not expecting that our lead character Paul ( Charles Bronson ) will not find these motherfuckers in the film. But instead will become angry at the entire crime scene of the city. And I also was not expecting the film to be so politically charged.

The message of the movie, it seems, is specifically anti-gun-control. It is a movie about a liberal guy ( and the movie is drawing attention to it in the beginning of the film ) who gets his wife killed and daughter raped. And that guy gets a gun and starts shooting random criminals on the street as a form of revenge. Not the criminals that did something to his specific family. Random criminals. Like if it is a super-hero movie. He even saves one guy from 3 motherfuckers. And that guy refuses to remember what our "hero" looks like, when asked by the police.

The film draws a lot of attention to the politics of it all. To what the press is saying, to what people are thinking and to the crime rates. The film argues that one Charles Bronson with a revolver is enough to bring down the entire crime scene in New York by 50%. There is even a character in the beginning of the film who gives Paul a monologue about his stance on gun-control. And that how in his opinion, places where guns are everywhere, everybody is safe.

The main character starts the film liberal, but ends the film totally an utterly conservative. And the film is asking the audience to do the same. Michael Winner, the director of this film, is known to be a member of conservative party. And I think he was using his voice as a filmmaker to spread conservative ideas. In my opinion, the rhetoric of those opinions in the film is rather convincing. Not that I specifically agree with the film. It just that the flow of information, the juxtaposition of ideas and ultimately the satisfying cinematic violence, makes you, at least while watching the film, utterly on the side of Bronson's character. What I mean is, Winner succeeds at corrupting the audience.

The film is surprisingly realistic. I was for some reason expecting this kind of Tarantinoesque grind-house movie. But instead I got something more akin to Taxi Driver. It is a character study of how a man turns violent. Yet while in Taxi Driver you sort of want to see how pathetic that man is. In Death Wish Charles Bronson is just a straight up hero.

Happy Hacking!!!

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If it is a superhero movie, turn it into a comic.

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