There are many movies out there that claim they ask the question "what would you do?" throughout but few truly mean it like this classic.The great Charles Bronson delivers a brilliant performance as Paul Kersey,an architect and family man whose wife is brutally beaten to death and daughter is raped by a gang of 3 savage thugs led by a young Jeff Goldblum in his first movie appearance.Paul Kersey then exacts revenge by killing any thugs,muggers and hooligans he can find during the night.This in turn encourages ordinary citizens to fight back against crime which leaves the police with a dilemma,Capture Paul Kersey the vigilante and crime will rise or leave him and crime will continue to drop.This movie made Bronson a worldwide star and one of the biggest box office draws for years to come.There is also a perfect atmosphere to the movie and it is a realistic image of new york in the 70s.The music by Herbie Hancock perfectly suits the movie also.The series has been affected by the fact that the sequels became average over the top action movies but this First Death Wish is filled with suspense,emotion,action and great directing from Michael Winner. A true Classic.
Reviews
6 Reviews
One of the BEST bond movies
10 January 2012
This is an absolutely brilliant Bond movie and sadly the most underrated or overlooked.I think because George Lazenby only did the one bond movie people automatically assume he was a bad bond,On the contrary he was great as bond.He made bond into a real person and not a superhero that other actors showed bond as.Diana Rigg stars the ultimate bond girl who is strong,clever,bonds equal but also she wins his heart and apart from the new Casino Royale is the only woman that bond truly falls in love with and so the audience care for her and that makes the ending the only truly sad,almost tear jerking moment in all the bond films.The action scenes were very good such as the ski chase and bobsled scenes,George Lazenby also looks very good during the fight scenes and he also briefly learnt martial arts from Bruce Lee in 1973.Telly Savalas was also great as Blofeld,Though not as truly sinister as the great Donald Pleasence,Savalas was suave,sinister and was more hands on with action so he was as impressive as Pleasence was.Overall this is a brilliant bond movie and George Lazenby was the most believable and showed bonds human side and its a shame he did not do more because this is one of if not the BEST bond movie ever.
Chato's Land
(1972)
A true masterpiece
10 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Chato's Land is another classic from the legendary Charles Bronson.He was a man who's actions spoke louder than words and this is proof of that fact.Bronson plays Pardon Chato,an apache who shoots a racist sheriff in self defence and is then hunted by a posse led by Quincy Whitmore played brilliantly by Jack Palance.The hunt then turns against the hunters when Chato leads them into apache territory where he is in charge and knows it inside out.The hunters then realise they have underestimated their opponent because in Chatos land Chato is the hunter and Whitmore and his posse are now the hunted.Charles Bronson probably speaks 10 lines at the most and most of his lines are spoken in apache while a lot of focus is on the supporting cast.This was the first of six movies starring Bronson and directed by Michael Winner.Though Winner has become the butt of jokes and criticism in recent years his movies of the 60ties defined the decade and in the 70ties his revenge movies set the bar for all revenge movies that would follow and that should not be forgotten when talking about Michael Winner.This is a gritty,violent revenge story and is an underrated masterpiece.Far better than modern westerns of today.
Horror Express
(1972)
A true underrated classic
4 January 2012
This is a horror movie that a lot of people will not of heard of but should definitely watch as it is a classic.I did'nt know much about this film when i first watched it and was not sure what to expect but i loved the film.The setting on the train gives it a scary atmosphere and that claustrophobia sense and being unable to leave adds to the feeling of fear on the train.Horror legends Sir Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are on fine form and show us why they were such a legendary duo.Telly Savalas also stars as the crazy Captain Kazan,Though his screen time is limited he makes the most of it and delivers a great performance which adds positively to the film.This is fast paced action with genuinely scary scenes and some gory moments.This is a must see for horror fans,you will not be disappointed.
Halloween
(1978)
The golden age of horror
4 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
As the title says,This masterpiece was made during the horror golden age.Proof that bucket loads of blood and gore does not make a horror film scary.What makes a horror movie scary is atmosphere and a slow buildup of tension and a chilling music score and great acting.Halloween has all these things.We start by seeing a six year old Michael Myers stab his sister to death on Halloween 1963,After 15 years in a mental institution Michael escapes and returns to Haddonfield,Illinois to resume his killing ways.He is chased by his doctor,Doctor Samuel Loomis played perfectly by the late great Donald Pleasence.Jamie lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode who becomes Michaels target and she has to find her inner strength and bravery to fight back.The slow buildup leads us to believe that Michael could actually be pure evil and even after being shot 6 times he remains unharmed.As written earlier there is no blood or gore but a scary mood and atmosphere which is helped the iconic theme.John Carpenter is truly gifted director who had such great visions and made many of my favourite films,Halloween is definitely his best closely followed by The Thing.I would recommend this to anyone and if you have not seen this already where have you been.
Friday the 13th
(1980)
The start of a long,unforgettable series
3 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
The movie that gave birth to one of the most famous killers of all time,Jason Vorhees.Although he became the killer in part 2 this was the movie gave us his name.This is by no means an original horror movie even when it was released in 1980,it borrowed heavily from classics such as Halloween,Psycho,Black Christmas E.T.C .The acting may be cheesy and maybe dull but this started the now extremely tired story of half naked teenagers having sex then being brutally murdered until the virgin girl is the last one left.This does have some scary moments and very creepy music.This is by far the best in the series with part 2,3 and 4 being worthy sequels but part 8,9,and 10 being dire and boring.Overall this is an underrated classic and though some of the sequels make the series look silly i would recommend you watch this one and see when the series was at its best and scariest.
Tell Your Friends