Review: Death Wish II

After an attack on his wife and daughter enraged him to the point of vigilantism, architect Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) has relocated from NY to LA, and shacked up with radio personality Geri (Jill Ireland). His daughter Carol (Robin Sherwood) has never really recovered mentally/emotionally from her ordeal. Meanwhile, a bunch of street punks (Laurence Fishburne among them) are up to no good, and having already nicked Paul’s wallet, they see his address and decide to pay a visit. They brutally rape his maid, and when Kersey arrives home with Carol, they knock him out, kidnap Carol, rape her too, and then she has finally lost the will to live and kills herself. Time for Kersey to do what he does best, skulk about on the streets at night to catch and kill every one of these creeps, and maybe take out a couple of unrelated crims and lowlifes along the way for good measure. Meanwhile, he keeps Geri in the dark about his moonlighting habits, but NY cop Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) has turned up in LA looking for him. Charles Cyphers plays an orderly, Anthony Franciosa is the Police Commissioner, and J.D. Cannon briefly appears as the New York DA.

 

Often regarded as one of the worst sequels of all-time, if not one of the worst films of any kind of all-time, this 1982 follow-up to the 1974 vigilante hit from returning director Michael Winner (whose “Lawman” and “The Mechanic” were at least decent, but the rest…yikes!) has very few redeeming features at all. I wasn’t a fan of the original really (I prefer my revenge films to be much less serious-minded and much less rape-y), and this is definitely a cheapjack cash-grab if ever I’ve seen one. Being a Golan-Globus flick is a surprise to no one here (they kept Mr. Bronson, Michael Dudikoff, and Chuck Norris employed through the 80s), the Israeli duo taking over the franchise from the slightly less dubious Dino De Laurentiis (hey, at least he has “Barbarella”, “Serpico” and “The Dead Zone” to his otherwise mostly crummy producing/distribution credits!), who produced the first one. The only thing this one holds over the original is that at least Charles Bronson mostly sticks to the specific bastards who have wronged him, something I found hard to accept about the first film (I suppose it helps that he actually witnesses the attackers mid-rape this time out, though). That’s not nearly enough of a difference to make for a good film, however.

 

There’s the potentially interesting story strand of Bronson’s daughter’s struggles to overcome the attack in the first film, dealt with early on. Unfortunately, it has been horrendously handled here and is merely used to give Bronson more reason to be angry and vengeful. Actress Robin Sherwood acts like the character is intellectually disabled, not just traumatised. It’s just too silly to behold. Come to think of it, I could use the ‘intellectually disabled’ to describe leading lady Jill Ireland’s acting talents, or lack thereof. But that would be mean (For the record, I’m physically disabled, so if you’re thinking I’m merely being offensive to the disabled, think again there, little buddy!). At any rate, she’s her usual ‘odd duck’ self, facially immobile, and completely out of her depth. Also, what in the hell is going on with the music score, allegedly by Jimmy Page? Yes, Jimmy Freakin’ Page is credited with the music score and it’s appalling. I mean, not only does it appear to my ears at least, that Page has only worked on the rock parts of the score, but the whole thing is just dreadfully silly and far too strident. It’s obnoxious beyond belief, and easily one of the worst and loudest music scores of all-time. The end credits claim ‘Music Arranged and Conducted by’ David Whitaker (“Lawman”, “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde”, “Vampire Circus”), so my guess is that Page only does the intro and outro music, and Whitaker does the rest. They both deserve a public shaming, if you ask me (As does Winner himself for apparently choosing next door neighbour Page over the producers’ choice, Isaac Hayes. Hayes would’ve been much more appropriate).

 

It’s the screenplay by David Engelbach (who went on to pen the arm wrestling ‘classic’ “Over the Top”) and direction by Winner that are the real problems here, however. It’s cheap, lazy, and crude in both departments. These attackers aren’t remotely threatening at all, they are written and performed in as much of a cartoony fashion as the bozos in “Last House on the Left”. They are simple-minded punks who are about as threatening as Fat Albert and his gang. The first 15 minutes or so are ridiculously overstuffed with not just depravity, but stupid and overdone depravity. Look, the first film wasn’t a favourite of mine, but it wasn’t incompetently made. Winner has made some terrible films, but not all of his films are without merit (“Lawman” is particularly underrated), but he just delivers simplistic trash here. No effort whatsoever is made to give us anything beyond the most obvious and rudimentary plotting and characterisation. It’s a product, an ugly, tedious and stupid product meant to cash in on the success of its predecessor. Yes, it’s a sequel, but it didn’t have to be this cheap.

 

There’s some nice city landscape shots, but that just makes it shit with a few nice backgrounds. It’s still shit, and lead actor Bronson gives zero effort whatsoever. Vincent Gardenia surprisingly enough doesn’t phone it in like you might expect, but Anthony Franciosa certainly does. However, with the simplistic roles he and Winner regular J.D. Cannon have (being credited merely as ‘New York DA’ and ‘LA Police Commissioner’, respectively), can you really blame them? Perhaps not, but I can certainly sit in judgement of one Laurence ‘Larry’ Fishburne, who really ought to be ashamed of his participation in this. He was probably a starving young actor at the time, but he shouldn’t have made this film, and his performance is laughably bad. The notoriously cool actor is so very uncool here, dressed like a reject from Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ video.

 

Fans of the original might see something here, but for anyone who wasn’t a fan, this is clearly simplistic garbage and not even entertaining garbage. It’s cynical cash-grabbing at its absolute worst, the finale is especially evident of this (Including a really foul final line that just isn’t appropriate in tone for a film about rapists).

 

Rating: D