Is not a good movie. I watched it because someone told me it wasn’t a good movie. So therefore I had to go and watch it right away. It’s how psychology works or something.

Right?*

After listening to the most recent Wrong Opinions About Movies podcast (you can go listen too! They talk about Death Wish and Columbiana and some other stuff), it suddenly became imperative that I watch Death Wish RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND. And so I did.

It’s streaming on Hulu btw. In case you want to watch it. Not that you should. I’m just sayin’.

But really, what is the deal with Death Wish? While I’d never seen it, I feel like most people at least recognize the title and likely know the series starred Charles Bronson. Right? Am I wrong? Sometimes I get wrong about what I think most people have heard of…

When I think of Death Wish, I think of one of the central pieces of the vigilante themed revenge flicks of the ’70s. Dirty Harry, Taxi Driver, Walking Tall, etc. Clint Eastwood, Travis Bickle, Charles Bronson. They all kind of go together. They all grew out of the gunslinger sensibility of the Western and fit into the wider cultural disillusionment of the 70s, with a bad economy, distrust in institution, and a society still reeling from the wars in Vietnam and Korea.

I think of Death Wish in terms of that context. And in terms of that context, the film makes a sort of sense. Charles Bronson does what he was known for, he walks around all stoic-like being a beast of man and shoots people. The plot isn’t terribly deep, it’s standard Revenge Film fare – we meet our protagonist who happens to be some bleeding heart liberal, something terrible happens to either himself (sometimes herself) or his family, he has a change of heart, and then kills a lot of people/tracks down the bad guys/wreaks general havoc/gets his revenge. There’s violence, there’s probably exploitation, but mostly there’s more violence.

It is what is. Generally, the films themselves are not necessarily interesting (with the occasional exception like Taxi Driver) but put in the wider cultural context, the genre itself leaves plenty for discussion.

Films of this sort were popular in the ’70s. The genre saw a resurgence in popularity in the early 2000’s and has even continued to an extent through much of the past decade, in what one could argue is a similar political climate (when Hollywood gave us the Walking Tall remake, a bunch of Batman movies, Jodie Foster’s The Brave One, Munich, other comic book adaptations such as Kick-Ass, Watchmen, and even Iron Man, the list goes on).

What’s the difference between a Kick-Ass and a Death Wish? Colorful costumes and arguably better writing. But the fantasy is the same – an everyman is somehow wronged, tired of the ineffectual System, and in the end takes it upon himself to exact justice. Whether it’s against a specific villain or just bad guys in general varies. In the ’70s it tended to be “muggers” or generalized, anonymous bad guys; more recently there is usually a specific villain who has done the protagonist wrong.

It’s also common that the repercussions of the protagonists decision are hinted at but not fully explored. In Death Wish, Charles Bornson’s hero is glorified. People cheer for him, cheer every time he shoots a bad guy, cheer when the cops quietly let him go, free to continue his vigilante reign in another city. But what are the consequences for Bronson’s Paul Kersey? The film ostensibly lets him off without any. He’s already lost everything in the beginning of the story, what is there left to take from him? His humanity perhaps? His place in civilized society?

And I guess this is where the discussion goes, what is the morally correct thing to do? Sit by and watch as nothing is done for justice? In Death Wish, Paul’s son-in-law argues that this is what it means to be civilized. In the old westerns, morality is more ambiguous. Sometimes shooting a man is justified. In the vigilante genre there’s a nostalgia for that gun toting, make your own law past (that nostalgia seems to have found its way to our current political culture as well). The moral ambiguity leads to a freedom from consequences, for the protagonist if not for society on a whole.

What does revenge do to a person’s soul? Death Wish ends before that question is considered. Charles Bronson is forced to leave New York but he’s left free to continue on his path somewhere else with the audience cheering him on.

The genre offers a fantasy of control when in real life people are feeling disenfranchised. And that’s what Hollywood does – gives us fantasy, gives us a means for escaping reality if only for a couple of hours. This genre in particular is not one that generally appeals to me. Give me a man with a gun in the old west though… and I am just a puddle of excitement. I do love me a good western. Clint Eastwood, Man With No Name? Yes, please.

*There’s actually only one movie I’ve seen ever that I wish I could take back. And I won’t tell you what that movie is cause if I do, you’ll probably do the same thing I did when I first read about it. Add it to your Netflix queue immediately and regret it for a very long time after. On a similar note, the original Last House on The Left is one of the few films I’ve ever turned off because I was so grossed out by what was happening on screen. That whole exploitation/revenge thing in Last House on The Left, I Spit on Your Grave, etc. is very not for me.