Death Wish II - 42nd Street Sleaze

Jul

12

Death Wish II - 42nd Street Sleaze

≡ Category: Action, Essential, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Michael Winner
Year: 1982

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

I don’t care if you’ve never been to a 42nd Street second run theater in New York City back in the 70s and 80s. After you’ve watched Death Wish II, you’ll know what it’s like to step on the gummy concrete in those bygone moldy movie palaces and not want to know what’s on the floors. Death Wish II is that redolant of sleaze.

Back in 1974, when Death Wish came out, many said that Death Wish was a rank exploitation flick, sucking up to the raincoat brigade. Man, Death Wish was Shakespeare compared to Death Wish II. A more cynical cash-in you could not hope to find.

Poor Charles Bronson can’t bring himself to utter his lines like he believes them — he has complete contempt for the picture. For that matter, so does director Michael Winner. And why not? The script by hack David Engelbach is a complete rehash of the first flick, only without the psychological and social nuance.

As before, Paul Kersey’s loved ones are victims of crime, only this time, he goes after the specific perpetrators — more satisfying that way, you see. And there’s less of that pesky moral ambiguity to deal with.

And talk about lazy. The script drags poor Vincent Gardenia, who played Detective Frank Ochoa in the first flick, all the way to L.A. so he can pal around with Kersey.

Scriptwriter Engelbach doesn’t even bother to give the liberals in this movie decent arguments. Jill Ireland, who plays Geri Nichols, Bronson’s main squeeze, is the straw woman here. She’s supposed to be an author who writes about criminal rehabilitation or some such thing, but she’s made to look smug, foolish and totally out of touch.

Director Michael Winner only gets excited about the scenes where his Neanderthals scumbags rape and kill, and the corresponding scenes in which Paul Kersey (Bronson) exterminates the scumbags as though he’s popping a swollen tick. Winner films these sequences so salaciously that I kind of feel embarrassed for him. He has some overqualified character actors doing the heavy lifting, too.

Laurence Fishburne is absolutely wonderful as the most baroquely gruesome of the rampaging cretins. He dives head first into his characterization, grinning maniacally through his cat’s eye glasses, licking a knife when he’s not licking his lips. Fishburne is a riot when he tries to use a ghetto blaster as a shield during a gunfight. Winner films the aftermath with unseemly relish.

Even the music, by Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page, contributes to the general atmosphere of sleaze and sloth.

So far, this review makes it seem like I don’t much like Death Wish II, but it’s the very sleaziness and contempt for the audience from the filmmakers that give Death Wish II it’s pungent appeal. There’s an unmistakeable aura of boredom, cynicism and self-loathing about the project which never fails to crack me up.

In spite of Michael Winner’s evident disgust with the project, he’s enough of a pro that he embues the action scenes with an ugly immediacy. The emotional and philosophical scenes are laughably brief, so we get to the good parts (the violence) as soon as possible. And Death Wish II is only 88 minutes, so it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

Death Wish II is a bit like a game-winning alley oop toss from halfcourt at a basketball game. It may be ugly, but it does the job — call it Death Swish.