DeathWish
Background Information Page
The DeathWish quintilogy is a series of five movies starring Charles Bronson playing Paul Kersey. Originally, Paul Kersey is an design engineer with a New York development firm. He is blatanly characterized as a "bleeding-heart liberal" when it comes to crime, but after street thugs ransack his apartment, murder his newly-wed, and rape his daughter, he seeks revenge on the criminals who plague the town and leave the citizens in fear. As the police continue to display their incompitence in preventing crime, Kersey arouses public support for vigilantism when he gets a gun and uses it on criminals the police aren't stopping. Inevitably, he gets to preoccupied with his hatred of criminals for his own good, and the police catch on to his actions. He escapes to Chicago despite loads of evidence against him.
This first movie was among Charles Bronson's most successful of his career (92 total) and it led to four more in which he receives different motivation to unleash his killing.
The second movie is sometimes considered the worst of the five partly because the original had many characteristics of a good movie including serious societal commentary on vigilantism and crime as well as strong character development and the ongoing theme of whether being civilzed is beneficial. Death Wish 2 throws that aspect away and is much darker and hard core in terms of killing. It was even originally rated X for it's graphic rape scenes. For all this regression, the movie was awarded the highest box office draw of the five-$15 million. In the movie, he's doing well and has met Jill Ireland (his real life wife) and they are in a strong relationship heading toward marriage. After walking in on his maid and daughter being raped and the daughter later being killed, he goes back to his vigilante habit killing all five of the men who he witnessed do this. The final one of the five is particularly difficult to kill because he's been convicted on unrelated charges. His fiancee finds out about he's a vigilante and leaves him right, driving away right as he drove to the house after killing the last one.
After that he wanders about dejectedly possibly stopping in Kansas City where he may have killed 4 gang members and possibly 3 mugger/rapists in a return to Chicago so he's pretty much become a pro by this time. Death Wish 3 starts at this point, when he dejectedly moves to New York City where he's arrested as he arrives at his friend's house right after his friend was killed by gang members. He gives a fake name to the police, but the chief remembers him as the vigilante from several years back and has been keeping track loosely of his past. The chief forces him to "clean up" a crime ridden part of the town using vigilantism as long as he keeps the cops informed on what he'll do. Police have to work within the system, but vigilantes that the police can't catch don't. Kersey is threatened with punishment for his past offenses to make him cooperate and he does killing more people than in any other movie he ever made.
In the fourth version, he's back in Los Angeles. Kersey is again recruited to do dirty work against criminals, but this time a rich private citizen is funding Kersey's activities because he's lost a loved one to drugs. Kersey's mission is to kill anyone related to the drug trade thereby eliminating the entire drug production and distribution infrastructure of Los Angeles. He accomplishes this feat in one week.
Finally in the fifth version, Kersey's new wife is killed leading him to eliminate the "fashion mafia" which has a grip on the fashion industry in the city and on his dead wife's daughter.
Bronson said after the fourth one that he would not make any more in the series. He has vowed after the fifth he would stop as well and so far that's held true. He's also said that after he finishes his contract for Family of Cops 3 he'll stop making movies altogether. I certainly hope he comes back for a DeathWish 6!
For more information on a specific Deathwish movie...
DeathWish I DeathWish
II DeathWish III DeathWish
IV DeathWish V
DeathWish Page The
Bronson Collection Audio Clips Movie
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