Review: Death Wish (2018) A More Visceral Remake Of A Far Simpler Film
- Mar 8, 2018
- 2 min read
1974's Death Wish has endured for two reasons. The badass that is Charles Bronson, and the raw simplicity of it all. Bruce Willis and Eli Roth can't touch that.
Successful trauma surgeon Dr Paul Kersey (Willis) finds his family on the receiving end of a violent crime, one of many in what is quickly becoming the most violent year in Chicago's history. Feeling useless with his inability to help, Kersey takes up the gun and sets his sights on the criminals who dominate the streets. Of course, violent vigilante acts do not go unnoticed and before long Detective Rains (Dean Norris) soon finds himself on the hunt for the so called grim reaper.
In an attempt to bring the Death Wish story into the modern age, director Eli Roth, a man known more for his mindless violence than his quality filmaking, has destroyed what could have been a quality film. Be it a literal montage of memes, no really, an overload of heavy handed attempts at "commentary" delivered via radio shows or a plethora of poorly executed family scenes, Death Wish has tried to take a simple idea and expand it. And in doing so it has lost the core of what it was.
While the action on display is solidly enjoyable, and suitably brutal, and the acting, particularly the relationship between Kersey and his brother, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, is decent, it can't change the fact that it feels like two different films. On one hand, a family drama about coping with loss, and on the other, a violent thriller about an everyman vigilante. Unsurprisingly these theses don't really go together.
Is Death Wish an awful film? Not really. Would I object to the announcement of a sequel? Not Really. But it is worth your time and money? Not really.
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