Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)
Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) comes back for one last vigilante killing spree in Death Wish V: The Face of Death, and sad to say, it’s clear at this point that the series had exhausted itself. Despite some colourful villains and amusing one-liners, the fifth Death Wish doesn’t bring anything new to the series. While Bronson retains his charm in his last theatrical lead role, his advanced age here finally undermines his ability to make a convincing action hero.
Death Wish V — a minor irritation of this series is how the sequel titles swing between Roman and Arabic numerals — follows the series formula to a tee. Once again, Bronson has a new girlfriend with a young daughter. Once again, criminals kill his girlfriend, which pushes him back into vigilantism. In this case, the girlfriend is fashion designer Olivia Regent (Lesley Anne-Downs), who finds herself in the crosshairs of her ex-husband, Irish mob boss Tommy O’Shea (Michael Parks), also the father of her daughter Chelsea (Erica Lancaster).
Part of the problem with Death Wish V is that the body count is far too low for what fans have come to expect. Meanwhile, at 71 years old when this movie was filmed, Bronson is simply too old to engage in that much physical action. When he dodges bullets and particularly when he dives off a balcony to escape mobsters trying to kill him, it’s a stretch to believe a man of his age could perform such feats without breaking a hip. There is a difference between ageism and acknowledging the real physical limitations we all face as we get older.
As a result, Death Wish V is more conservative with Bronson’s action scenes. Rather than chasing down crooks as in previous films, Paul tends to set traps for them, which to be fair are clever and often accompanied by fun one-liners. My favourite is when he kills mobster Freddie “Flakes” Garrity (Robert Joy), who has a consistent problem with dandruff and an elaborate security system to allay his paranoia. Paul lures Freddie out of his home with a remote-controlled soccer ball that sets off his security alarm. When Freddie picks up the soccer ball, which is rigged with a bomb, Paul tells him he’s going to “cure your dandruff problem for you.” Freddie screams “Noooooo!” and blows up in Looney Tunes fashion. It’s pretty funny.
Another good kill is when Bronson poisons the cannoli of mobster Chicki Paconi (Kevin Lund) at his favourite Italian café. Special credit must be given to the newspaper headlines in this movie. “Chicki Paconi killed by canoli” is *chef’s kiss*.
As O’Shea, Parks — who bears an unfortunate resemblance here to Jerry Lewis — hams it up and makes the head mobster a villain we love to hate. O’Shea tortures workers early in the film, deploys thugs to brutalize and murder his ex-wife, treats his girlfriend abysmally, and later attempts to lure Bronson to his doom by using his own daughter Chelsea as bait, calling her a “little shit”. All this of course makes it more satisfying when he gets his comeuppance.
There’s a distinctly nasty tinge running throughout this film, particularly in scenes where O’Shea and his thugs torture and kill people. From today’s vantage point, one of the more “problematic” scenes is when Freddie, dressed as a woman, follows Olivia to the women’s bathroom, where he proceeds to assault and disfigure her. Films of this era had a tendency of depicting villains as gay, lesbian, transgender or cross-dressers to make them seem more “deviant”. Death Wish V came out the same year as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which has also attracted criticism over the years for its transphobic depiction of the main villain.
Freddie is not transgender, but the canard of male predators dressing as women to go into women’s bathroom and assault them is the basis for much current transphobic legislation, despite the lack of evidence for such incidents. The Death Wish series has always had right-wing politics; still, it’s an ugly moment that stands out amid today’s culture wars.
The climactic sequence has some notable deaths, including one gangster’s trip through a garment shredding machine and another’s fatal bath in a liming pool. Writers are familiar with the idea of “Chekhov’s gun”: the idea, as described by Russian short story master Anton Chekhov, that if an object appears in an early scene, that object will play a significant role later. Death Wish V presents us with “Chekhov’s liming pool” — although if liming pools have the effect on the human body we see here, you’d think they might have erected some protective barriers.
It would have been nice if the Death Wish series had ended with something different, maybe more of a character study of Paul — something more akin to a Rocky Balboa, for instance. Instead, it’s just another Death Wish film and probably the weakest of the series, though still passable for fans. Conversely, its music is some of the best, with an orchestral score by Terry Plumeri that evokes a sense of epic drama the movie itself can never quite live up to.
Once again the credits roll maybe 30 seconds after the villain dies, which underscores that these movies are purely about seeing Bronson kill creeps and crooks. Still, there is a nice moment where Bronson walks off and tells the standard cop present, “Hey Lieutenant, if you need any help, give me a call.” Given that this was Bronson’s final theatrical lead performance before his death, it’s a fitting sendoff to both character and actor. One only wishes it could have come at the end of a better movie.
5/10
