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Death Wish 3

Death Wish 3

List Price: $15.95
Your Price: $12.76
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mr. Bronson's Neighborhood
Review: With the recent passing of Charles Bronson I thought it best to revisit this, one of his most shameless and magnificent films.

After finally gaining marquee status with Death Wish (he was in his 50s already) Bronson went to town. Teaming up with Michael Winner and then with J. Lee Thompson, Bronson specialized in tough, violent movies about rogue cops and vigilantes. They were a staple of the genre addict.

Death Wish 3 is easily the most ridiculous of the series. The original was a powerful movie that forced a reaction from the viewer. Part 2 was an exceptionally seedy, vile movie full of sexual violence and ugly revenge. Appropriately grimy and gritty. Part 3, on the other hand...well, they just don't make movies like this anymore.

Paul Kersey has some of the worst luck in history. After losing his whole immediate family to various lowlifes in various American cities, he returns to New York to visit an old friend. Naturally he arrives just in time to find his friend dying from a beating administered by the local street gang. This gang is bad. Their leader is Straker, played with tremendous presence by Gavin O'Herlihy in what is considered a top-notch performance in the vigilante genre. Kersey is arrested for the murder, but the cops soon realize who he is. Instead of prosecuting, or just throwing him out of town, they hire him out to clean up the neighborhood.

As you can tell, the movie is an updated western of sorts. Except Dodge City is now a Brooklyn neighborhood complete with bombed out buildings, empty lots, crumbling sidewalks, heavily armed gangs, terrified citizens. This is not Brooklyn, but somewhere in Bosnia.

You will live out your most violent, right-wing fantasies by tuning in to watch Bronson take out an entire army of street thugs with an impressive array of weapons. Disregarding all but the Second Amendment, Bronson manages to mail order a .457 Magnum cannon and even a rocket launcher. That's right, he mail orders a rocket launcher.

The film is so tongue-in-cheek that it has to be applauded for its go-for-broke attitude when it comes to satisfying genre addicts. One of Bronson's old army buddies stores some old WWII, .50 caliber machine guns that make some old fashioned holes in various lowlifes. Bronson shoots some people who fall off buildings, he shoots a guy who snatches his camera in a great bit of mugger-baiting (I like the ice cream touch) and, amidst all of this, he even manages to have a relationship and bed down an attractive, younger woman. Of course, it doesn't take long for her to die violently and Bronson to get back to the matter at hand, namely killing people.

Chances are, you won't be reading this review by accident. You know what you're getting into when the number '3' is attached to the title and an aging Bronson is pictured with a very large gun. The only problem is that this movie is out of print, which is downright criminal. This is the one Death Wish that screams for DVD release. Perhaps Michael Winner, who now reviews restaurants on British TV, would be willing to do a commentary track and talk about the insanity that is Death Wish 3. Perhaps not. Either way, this is highly recommended.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: "It's like killing cockroaches."
Review: Anyone attempting to post a serious review of this film is wasting their time. Death Wish 3 is ridiculous, period. Once you have accepted this very obvious assertion, you can go ahead and get a completely guilty pleasure.

Bronson is back. And that's really all you need to know. And while in the original film (which was actually good) he was inexperienced in the whole vigilante thing, he now seems to have become a professional through and through. He's so good that he knows where you can simply mail order .457 "Welby" Magnums as well as military-issue rocket launchers. How does he start his little project? By buying a brand new Cadillac, parking it in the street in a neighborhood that looks worse than Sarajevo circa 1993, and baiting some punks. Bronson, disturbed during his dinner with some nice neighbors, calmly confronts the muggers and expresses his annoyance at their attempt theft by shooting them dead. He then returns to dinner, no doubt enjoying his meal more than ever.

This film is so over-the-top that credit must be given to Michael Winner for completely obliterating any credibility and social concern, unlike the first film and making something akin to a child's vision of "real" justice for street scum. Here, instead of being hesitant to arrest Bronson, the police flat out hire him to clean up an entire neighborhood. Just to make sure he isn't hindered from his job, some punks have crippled his old war buddy. Later, they blow up his latest love interest. Not like Bronson wouldn't have gone out and killed about 200 people anyway.

A few years ago I took a Cinema Studies class at a major university and to my surprise, one of my classmates was Joseph Gonzalez, who plays Bronson's neighbor Rodriguez (the zip gun guy). For a whole semester I thought of approaching him and asking him about his work on the film, but I had the overwhelming feeling that he would simply glare at me and ask me not to mention this info to anyone else. I thought that having Death Wish III on one's resume was bad, but when I did some digging on the Internet Movie Database I found that Gonzalez's only other acting credit was the 1990 film Frankenhooker. I kept my mouth shut and decided to hold off on the Death Wish III trivia with my classmates.

Nevertheless, I never fail to watch this film if it's on cable or TV. It's the guiltiest of pleasures. Bronson, guns, punks and muggers, death, insanity. And was Jimmy Page paying the rent or what with this score? The only validation I can see for a DVD release of this film is if we can get some cool extras, such as commentary by Michael Winner or even by (gasp) Bronson himself (yeah, that'll happen).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bronson Kicks some Honey Buns
Review: When the odds are against you, you can count on one man: Charles Bronson. Of the five 'Death Wish" movies I like this one the most. Bronson cleans up the neighborhood when some "creeps" decide to pick on our senior citizens. Yoy really have to like this outing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cinematic Perfection
Review: Ah, Death Wish 3! A larger body count than John Woo's "Hard Boiled" and perhaps the funniest movie ever made! "You don't really like opera...do you?" Bronson replies like a teddy bear: "No." What a crazy soundtrack by Jimmy Page...that crazy synth sound when Bronson pays in cash! And count all the times characters say "creep(s)" or "sonofab***h". For so many reasons, this is a movie that belongs in any person's vido library. It would have been nice if it got the Criterion Collection treatment...but hey, it's still great for the price. Having the DVD is nice because you can put the burning people and/or people jumping (or falling) from burning buildings on slow motion. And you notice things like the creep prancing around with a plunger! Just buy the darn film...it doesn't get better than this: "Chicken's good. I like chicken." Totally Gonzo; totally Bronson!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cinematic Perfection
Review: Ah, Death Wish 3! A larger body count than John Woo's "Hard Boiled" and perhaps the funniest movie ever made! "You don't really like opera...do you?" Bronson replies like a teddy bear: "No." What a crazy soundtrack by Jimmy Page...that crazy synth sound when Bronson pays in cash! And count all the times characters say "creep(s)" or "sonofab***h". For so many reasons, this is a movie that belongs in any person's vido library. It would have been nice if it got the Criterion Collection treatment...but hey, it's still great for the price. Having the DVD is nice because you can put the burning people and/or people jumping (or falling) from burning buildings on slow motion. And you notice things like the creep prancing around with a plunger! Just buy the darn film...it doesn't get better than this: "Chicken's good. I like chicken." Totally Gonzo; totally Bronson!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE MOST ENTERTAINING DEATH WISH
Review: DEATH WISH WAS A CLASSIC. THE OTHER SEQUELS WERE ALL VERY WATCHABLE. DEATH WISH 3, HOWEVER, IS THE MOST ENTERTAINING OF THEM ALL. INCREDIBLE! FUNNY AND ACTION PACKED FROM START TO FINISH! I'LL NEVER GET OVER THE GIGGLER'S DEMISE!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bronson Kicks some Honey Buns
Review: When the odds are against you, you can count on one man: Charles Bronson. Of the five 'Death Wish" movies I like this one the most. Bronson cleans up the neighborhood when some "creeps" decide to pick on our senior citizens. Yoy really have to like this outing.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "shoot to kill"
Review: it should be more people like c.b. - here in norway they give medals to gangsters and nice prisonhotels, while retired people are stowed away in old houses. but try to take money from the
state - you end up with 5years in prison. see a mugger? shoot him" see a burglar? shoot him! see enemies of a free country?
shoot ALL of them - all the way from hell and back again.
I like c. bronson, john wayne, c. eastwood and j. cash.
thm
molde
norway

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE BEST, AND FUNNIEST, ACTION MOVIE EVER!!
Review: Forget Vin Diesel, Dirty Harry or Rambo. They can't compare to Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey in Death Wish 3. He's the coolest and meanest tough guy EVER and this is the funnest and funny action flick around. Death Wish 3 is one of the most entertaining films ever made in the entire history of cinema without question. Nothin comes even close. THANK GOD DEATH WISH 3 IS ON DVD!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Too Funny!
Review: Charles Bronson is back (again) and he is packing heat (again). This time he goes after a crazy gang terrorizing a rundown neighborhood. We even get treated to a rape scene involving Counselor Troi with a bad Mexican accent! Can this be anymore camp?!?


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