Rating: 
Summary: superb 70's film
Review: This is one of the best of it's era. Very well done. Holds up well to multiple viewings and it's far better than you might expect if you haven't seen it. Director Michael Winner really delivers and Bronson is in top form. It has a highly effective musical score too.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm not sure where the other reviewer got his copy of
Review: the original novel (author, Brian Garfield), but mine most decidedly DIDN'T end with Kersey going to another city. In fact, it was, in a wierd way, even "colder" than the end of the film. That being said, this is, as you know, one of the original vigilante, one-man-gets 'em all films, a sort of Nevada Smith goes to Manhattan, with several really brutal scenes. Easily one of Bronson's better roles, and yes, you do find yourself alternately cheering and being a little horrified. Interestingly, a person couldn't do a Paul Kersey today, because most of the muggers are carrying guns as well... how's that for irony?
Rating:
Summary: New York in the 70's WAS that bad
Review: As late as the 1990s, a midnight walk through Central Park or Prospect Park or Riverside Drive or just about any secluded area in New York City was tantamount to asking to be victimized. So to those skeptics who can't believe New York was that bad in the 1970s, I say "Believe it!"
Anyway...
Years before Peter Finch, as Howard Beale in NETWORK, chanted, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!", Charles Bronson's Paul Kersey was well beyond that point. DEATH WISH, among other things is a gritty, unflinching look at the violence urban dwellers all over America faced in the 1970s. Paul Kersey, an Upper West Sider, discovers that his wife has been murdered, and his daughter raped and beaten by intruders. In an interesting twist on movie convention, Kersey doesn't seek revenge by going after the men who destroyed his family: he goes after any and all criminals. Bronson's portrayal of an average guy who, in stages, progresses from amateur to super-vigilante, is very credible. The psychological complexities are intriguing. On one level, he can't let go of the past, so he continues his rampage. However, at the same time, he redecorates his apartment and berates his son-in-law for living in the past. But it makes sense. His daytime self wants to be normal, his night-time--darker--side is bloodthirsty.
There is also an ethical complexity to this film. We all know, somewhere in our moral calculus, that vigilantism only promotes chaos and anarchy. We know we need a police department to enforce our laws. But what happens when that law enforcement is too bogged down by red tape, overwork, and apathy? Paul Kersey did seek justice through proper channels, harrassing the police to move more quickly on the case. It was when that failed, and after a trip out west (where cowboy justice once thrived), that he took the law into his own hands. Again, a very logical reason for his becoming a vigilante. And the viewer cannot help but root for him, no matter how wrong we should think it is.
DEATH WISH is not just a bloodbath thriller film (although the violence was pretty graphic for its time). It is a disturbing and complex movie, and an accurate look back at a time when urban life was so bad, that even Jim Morrison had to shout, "Save our cities!"
Rating: 
Summary: First in Series of 70s' Vigilante-Hero Flicks
Review: Charles Bronson in his best known role, as the middle-class man who's had enough. After his wife and young daughter are brutally raped, his wife left dead from the ordeal, Bronson goes on a vigilantee killing rampage. Whenever a thug demands his wallet or somehow threatens violence, Bronson gives the bad guys more than they bargained for: A belly full of bullets, courtesy of one guy who's not playing Mr. Nice Guy anymore.
This film has been met with applause and shock when presented to a eager world-audience. The big city violence of the 1970s had long been a social issue in American society. Many subway-riding working people were in favor of -clean up the streets-, ridding society of the threats of urban banditry. At the same time, a film suggesting -taking matters in one's own hands- as did the Bronson character, alarmed a good number of people. Anarchy can result from both extremes, vigilanteism and inaction. The subject matter (and the way it was handled) are certainly dated. For fans of good old fashined crime drama a-la Kojak, -Death Wish- may just be the ticket! Followed by 3 sequels.****
Rating:
Summary: CONTROVERSY IS GOOD.
Review: I don't remember too many films from the 1970's the earned an entire OP/ED page in the N.Y. Times, but this urban classic did. Controversy proved to be good box office and Bronson became a superstar as Paul Kersey. DEATH WISH is a taunt thriller that sparked more than one water cooler discussion in 1974. Michael Winner worked this one into a poster child for street justice and inspired more than a few real life imitators (the ad campaign boasted: "Paul Kersey is going to kill 3 muggers tonight: One for his murdered wife, one for his raped daughter and one for you!"). What was more unfortunate is that DEATH WISH became a parody of itself with 4 awful sequels. Forgot the rest, cheer for Bronson here everytime he caps a bad guy.
Rating:
Summary: Brings new meaning to the words,"necessary force."
Review: I love seeing works of both fiction and non fiction where the content is presented in as blunt a form as possible, and I think this is the case with Death Wish. Although some may accuse this film's makers of exploiting peoples' fear of criminals I think that the director was simply trying to be realistic, this way the viewer can get an idea of what it is like to be a victim of violent crime, be it yourself or a family member. Also, I'm sure that there are things happening in real life that are far worse that what has been shown in this film, but that's a different issue. This is why the rape scene, brutal as it may have been, was a necessity to set this film apart as a realistic action/vigilante film.Another interesting thing about Death Wish is that the protagonist does not seem like a person who would be an vigilante, he's a middle aged man who is, dare I say, gentle. But when rape and murder hit his family he does not know what to do, especially when the police do not seem able to help at all. And so after receiving a pistol from a newly made cowboy type friend in the Southwest he begins to walk the streets awaiting the latest mugger attack so that he can properly undertake the capping of their behinds. This is one of the unique features of the first Death Wish compared to its sequels, Paul Kersey does not know who he is hunting, and so he simply caps whosoever should try to mug him. But in the sequels he knows exactly who he is searching for. I also liked the action in this movie. It seemed to me that what Paul Kersey lacked in physical finesse he made up for in marksmanship. I particularly liked the scene where the two men follow him into the tunnel from the café and he has to fend off two men with knives at close range with a pistol. Even the slightest wrong move on the part of Kersey would have meant his doom. Death Wish is a film of relief for those who have completely lost their patience with crime waves. It doesn't show muggers and rapists as victims of society, but as people who are able to exist freely in it. The film is correct in showing that so many of these criminals can do whatever they want and walk freely; statistically, only one out of every sixteen rapists will ever spend a day in jail. But it does fail statistically, as more sexual assaults are perpetrated on young women by people they know rather than by strangers, but that too is another issue.
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