It seems the sequels to the original "Death Wish" appear with some regularity on cable channels in my area, so I've been catching them out of order every now and then. However it occurred to me I never reviewed the picture that started it all, having seen it when it first came out and not again till the other day.
Given the circumstances of how Paul Kersey's wife was murdered and his daughter left a catatonic invalid, the response we get in this story is almost mild by comparison to the over the top violence we see in movies today, including the sequels spawned by this film which started up eight years later. I don't know if this was the revenge film that initiated the genre, though it has a pretty good claim to the title.
It's interesting to note the advance in technology from the mid-Seventies to today by way of that scene where Frank Ochoa's (Vincent Gardenia) partner ran around looking for an available phone booth to call Kersey's apartment and got frustrated to find one where the line had been cut. I'm curious how younger viewers of today process that scene, when even a kid can make a call on a cell phone. How primitive the Seventies must have been.
In case you didn't keep count, Paul Kersey gunned down a total of ten muggers in the picture, missing one and getting shot himself on his final outing. By then it wasn't a surprise that Ochoa would offer him a way out of the headlines if he accepted a deal to get out of town. However there was an element of closure lacking regarding the three hoods who opened the picture with the attack on Kersey's family; he never ran across them to get the vengeance he was seeking. Speaking of which, and I know all actors have to get their start somewhere, but what a way for a young actor like Jeff Goldblum to catch a break by landing a role in his very first picture as a slimy street thug.
Given the circumstances of how Paul Kersey's wife was murdered and his daughter left a catatonic invalid, the response we get in this story is almost mild by comparison to the over the top violence we see in movies today, including the sequels spawned by this film which started up eight years later. I don't know if this was the revenge film that initiated the genre, though it has a pretty good claim to the title.
It's interesting to note the advance in technology from the mid-Seventies to today by way of that scene where Frank Ochoa's (Vincent Gardenia) partner ran around looking for an available phone booth to call Kersey's apartment and got frustrated to find one where the line had been cut. I'm curious how younger viewers of today process that scene, when even a kid can make a call on a cell phone. How primitive the Seventies must have been.
In case you didn't keep count, Paul Kersey gunned down a total of ten muggers in the picture, missing one and getting shot himself on his final outing. By then it wasn't a surprise that Ochoa would offer him a way out of the headlines if he accepted a deal to get out of town. However there was an element of closure lacking regarding the three hoods who opened the picture with the attack on Kersey's family; he never ran across them to get the vengeance he was seeking. Speaking of which, and I know all actors have to get their start somewhere, but what a way for a young actor like Jeff Goldblum to catch a break by landing a role in his very first picture as a slimy street thug.