Death Wish 3 (1985)
An ultra-violent, surrealistic cartoon, Death Wish 3 is one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen. That’s also what makes it such a guilty pleasure. The third film in the adventures of Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson), former bleeding-heart liberal turned gun-toting vigilante, throws away any lingering sense of realism to give us an insane action fantasy so over the top it veers into self-parody. Whether director Michael Winner or screenwriter Don Jakoby — here using the pen name of Michael Edmonds — had satirical intent or not, this is a movie that knows exactly what the audience wants and gives it to them in spades.
In terms of sheer body count, this must rank among the most violent movies ever made. Critics at Ruthless Reviews, who are such avid fans of Death Wish 3 they’ve written at least five articles about it, count at least 500 on-screen deaths. Compared to the first two films, the motivation for Bronson’s latest killing spree is more perfunctory than ever. The film starts with Paul returning to New York City to visit an old Korean War buddy Charley (Francis Drake), who of course has a gang of punks — one played by future Bill and Ted star Alex Winter — break in and beat him to death immediately before Paul shows up.
Police arrest Paul and charge him with the murder, before Police Chief Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter) recognizes him as the vigilante who prowled the streets of New York 10 years earlier. Exasperated with the utter inability of police to stop rampant gang violence, the chief makes a deal with Paul. The chief sets him loose and allows Paul to kill all the creeps he wants, with the proviso that he reports back any gang activity he hears about so police can make a bust.
To describe the crime we see in Death Wish 3 as “gang violence” doesn’t really do it justice. Every scene looks like modern Visigoths gleefully sacking Rome. What we have is an absurd situation where a small army of punks effectively rules Charley’s neighbourhood, which Paul moves into after his friend’s murder. They kill, rob, assault and rape the residents with utter impunity. No one can even venture outside of their homes without being attacked by gang members.
This makes for a hilarious scene when Paul goes out to kill a punk one evening and says, “I’m going out for some ice cream. This is America, isn’t it?” He brings along a big Nikon camera for extra bait. Sure enough, as soon as Paul leaves the store with his ice cream, the exact punk he’s been looking for, “Giggler” (Kirk Taylor) shows up and snatches the camera, at which point Paul blows him away with his new Wildey hunting pistol. As he helpfully explains to his neighbour, “A .475 Wildey magnum is a shorter version of the African big-game cartridge,” adding with perfect comic timing, “It makes a real mess.”
Calling the gang members one-dimensional is being generous. Even the Night Slasher’s gang in Cobra had an ideological goal of sorts: to purge the weak so only the strong remain. The gang in Death Wish 3 exist purely to terrorize the good, innocent people of the neighbourhood and to act as evil incarnate. They hang around getting high and attacking residents while police do nothing. As in Death Wish II, there are gratuitous rape scenes mainly included to provide motivation for the male heroes and an excuse for female nudity. Future Star Trek: The Next Generation cast member Marina Sirtis, unrecognizable here, provides an example of the latter in the thankless role of Maria Rodriguez — a young woman who is raped and murdered, driving her husband (Joe Gonzalez) to join Paul’s vigilantism.
The best example of the villains’ lack of depth is gang leader Manny Fraker (Gavan O’Herlihy), who finds himself in the same cell as Paul early in the film and picks a fight with him for no reason other than that Paul is the main character. Manny is soon released, because in classic Dirty Harry fashion, this is a world in which the country that incarcerates more of its population and lavishes more money on police than any other has an outrageously liberal criminal-justice system that coddles violent criminals. Before leaving, Manny addresses Paul with one of the movie’s more memorable silly lines: “Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna kill a little old lady, just for you. Catch it on the six o’clock news.”
Scenes in which Paul easily punches out young gang members push the limits of believability, considering that Bronson was 63 years old when this movie was made. In keeping with tradition, Bronson has a love interest played by an actress more than 30 years younger than him. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed public defender Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin) is initially shown wearing glasses with her hair up, then gradually lets down her hair and takes off her glasses (spoiler alert: she’s beautiful!).
Kathryn asks Paul out to dinner and the two eventually have sex. Minutes later, again in classic ’80s action style, she is immediately killed by gang members the second Paul leaves her sight while she is waiting in his car. They knock her unconscious and push her car down a hill where, going maybe 30 km/h, it hits another car and immediately explodes. Ruthless Reviews has thoroughly documented the rampant homoeroticism of ’80s action films. While Bronson’s work has less focus on muscles and oiled chests than the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Death Wish 3 can’t resist the trope of having the female love interest die immediately after committing the sin of heterosexual intercourse.
Right-wing politics another is one of the cornerstones of ’80s action and the Death Wish series, with its story of a liberal conscientious objector who turns vigilante after the rape and murder of his wife and daughter, is a perfect example. One of my favourite scenes in this vein is when Kathryn, who until now in her capacity as a public defender has been talking a lot about the rights of accused criminals, etc., expresses her frustrations.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m on the wrong side,” she says. “Defending creeps… I’ve seen a lot of gentle people get hurt. Dammit, people have got to start to fight back, and hard! The whole thing’s just — it’s out of balance.” Paul’s response is dripping with irony: “Some people would say that was an extreme position.” In its tough-on-crime bromides, the scene can’t help but recall words attributed to hard-right U.S. presidential candidate Barry Goldwater: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
If you want to see “extremism in defence of liberty and justice”, with Bronson as the proverbial “good guy with a gun”, look no further than the climax in which he mows down a couple hundred punks with an MG 42 machine gun, with Mr. Rodriguez in support helping feed in more ammo. These scenes grow a bit monotonous after a while, especially after Paul switches back to his Wildey pistol. The editing mostly follows a basic pattern: Paul shoots, punks shoot back, Paul shoots again and kills punks. Later Shriker joins him, and the vigilante and police chief roam the streets together killing people, which is probably the most realistic part of the movie.
Once again in the words of Ruthless Reviews, the movie is enjoyable insofar as you take none of it seriously, sit back and allow it to “flip on your Reagan switch so you can savor the relentless massacre of other human beings.” The level of gunfire, explosions and destruction in the climax resembles a war zone, as director Michael Winner all but abandons narrative in favour of non-stop violence. I appreciated the way Paul ends up utilizing his rocket launcher, as well as the traps he sets up in his apartment complex that anticipate Home Alone.
In a lot of ways this film hearkens back to classic Westerns, with Paul the stranger who comes into town and uses his pistol to right wrongs, protecting the local townsfolk by driving off the villains who have invaded their community before riding off into the sunset. It becomes less funny when you think about people who might take this movie’s endorsement of vigilantism and extrajudicial murder seriously. But for those of us who can enjoy it as cartoonish self-parody — whether deliberate or not — Death Wish 3 is a hilarious addition to the ’80s action genre.
7/10
