Be careful what you wish for

There are two types of people in this world; people who think Johnny Cash wrote Hurt and people who aren't idiots. You might be tempted to forgive that first category of person for their ignorance, particularly if they're under the age of twenty (Downward Spiral is nearly 25 years old and that makes me feel positively decrepit), except for the fact we live in an age where most people's phones have more memory than my first desktop PC and the Information Super Highway, as it is increasingly less known, is merely a few preposterously manicured fingertips away. There is literally no excuse to be that ignorant, but that doesn't seem to stop people. The thing is that music and movies both seem to be thriving on exactly that. I've mentioned my dislike of the term 'for fans of' because if you can easily apply that to your creative endeavour, then personally I don't think you're trying hard enough. Similarly, if the best you can come up with is to rehash somebody else's script 20 years down the line, you need to have a word with yourself. If you were doggedly sticking with me till I made my point, here it comes.

During my habitual Monday lunchtime browse of Asda's DVD section I routinely come across all manner of horrendous, straight-to-bargain-bucket, random toss. Usually it's either horror movies with titles that are just stolen from other movies and crammed together or action movies that have stolen the font and title of successful films and changed one or two words to avoid getting sued into oblivion. There's also a fairly well represented second tier; movies that never made it to the cinema or streaming services, but obviously have a decent budget, known actors and it may even have had enough cash left over to attach their trailer to something more respectable. It was there that I saw Bruce Willis glaring back at me under the striking words Death Wish.

Now, I've been burned before; recently in fact when Killing Gunther drew me in with a similar cover and Arnie's familiar grimace beaming out at me. We all know how that turned out. Something about this peaked my interest though, especially when I found out it was directed by Eli Roth and my last iota of self-preservation dripped away and I knew I had to watch it just to see how much of a shit-show he'd made of it. I've never liked Eli Roth's movies; partially because they're mostly childish gore-fests with all the subtlety and nuances of a 40 foot square breezeblock made entirely from other breezeblocks. The cine-masochist (I'm copyrighting that phrase by the way) in me was rubbing increasingly sweaty palms in anticipation at hating it and getting to rag on it in a blog when it suddenly dawned on me; I hadn't seen the original. That in itself is fairly criminal for a self-professed action movie fan. Don't get me wrong, I was aware of Death Wish but somehow had never managed to see it or any of the four sequels. While I was watching it, it also occurred to me that there was probably a subset of society that only knew Charles Bronson as Britain Most Dangerous Convict as portrayed by Tom Hardy and that they were probably listening to Johnny Cash while they tweeted about how offended they were by basically everything. 

The 1974 Death Wish is very, very seventies but is a really good watch. I'd forgotten it was directed by Michael Winner who most people probably remember for telling an old dear to calm down, because it's only a commercial. For what it is, Death Wish is actually pretty decent; bleeding heart liberal's wife is killed and his daughter raped and traumatised by street thugs, he goes on a murderous rampage around the city, standard revenge thriller stuff. Except at the time it wasn't standard, not by any means. The rape scene that kicks off proceedings (and features a very young Jeff Goldblum getting his arse out) is pretty grim to watch even by today's standards and it's no surprise there was uproar. Bronson proceeds to wander about goading thugs into mugging him and then out-and-out murdering them, whilst a thinly veiled social commentary about the effectiveness of the police versus vigilante justice unfolds in the background. It was ground-breaking at the time and laid the blueprint for pretty much every revenge thriller that came after it. No Death Wish? No Taken, no John Wick, no Equalizer, no Man on Fire, no The Crow... you get my point. Also, Political Correctness wasn't really a thing back then, the BBFC just straight up banned stuff they didn't like so it did make me quite excited to see how the man responsible for the 'most gory movie ever' was going to handle things. Tedious is the most polite answer.

Considering his predisposition towards being shocking and his previous links to Tarantino, you might have expected Death Wish 2018 to be a meaty slice of visceral action. What we actually get isn't as bad as Killing Gunther, but it's just... beige. The cinematic equivalent of hold music on a conference call or the screen saver on your work laptop that you can't change and comes on at far to frequent intervals meaning you have to put your password in about 40 times a day. It has all the ingredients: a very respectable cast including Bruce, Vincent D'Onofrio, Elizabeth Shue and the guy from Breaking Bad who always plays a cop. A director who, for all his flaws, should be right at home courting controversy with something with this sort of reputation. A budget that would probably pay off the gross national date of a slew of third world countries. Somehow it just all blends into a dull mess. 

Where 2018's Death Wish falls down for me is that it loses a lot of the social commentary. Bronson was an avenger not just of his wife, but of the city whereas Willis offs a few thugs to get a taste, but is purely after the lowlifes who shot his wife and left his daughter in a coma. Even the home invasion scene was somewhat tame by comparison to its 40 year old predecessor where perhaps you might have thought it would be the other way around. Bronson's conscientious objector really pushes the switch from mild mannered liberal to gun-wielding vigilante, whereas Willis' surgeon avoids getting into a fight at his kid's football match, loses his family and learns to become the Punisher by watching YouTube videos, obviously. The newer version feels like it would have been more fulfilling if it had been handled a bit better; it's like comparing a picture of a Big Mac with the crudely assembled disappointment in front of you. It looks like it should fill you up, but you know deep down you're going to be hungry again in about 20 minutes. They did slap the iconic finger gun scene in at the end which was a nice homage, but it was a bit of a case of too little too late.

I think my favourite comparison between the two movies is the front covers of the DVDs. 1974 cover: Bronson holding a gun that's clearly not the revolver he uses throughout the movie and has clearly been PhotoShopped in at a later date. 2018 cover: Willis holding a gun that was clearly PhotoShopped over a screen capture of the finger gun in the last scene of the movie. The more things change, huh?