Death Wish 2 is even worse than what its title suggests, and that is something that has never happened to me while I watched its other sequels. (The absolutely gung-ho 3, the fun 4, the final 5). With sequences that seems to be at home in movies like "Forced Entry" or "I Spit on Your Grave", Death Wish 2 is definitely not your ordinary vigilante movie, dealing with themes and graphic imagery that would make the newer, cleaner vigilante movies like "Death Sentence" feel like "Terms Of Endearment".
In Death Wish 2, it's not all about the violence that makes it sick, it's the unhealthy anticipation for it to happen, both referring to the two brutal rapes/murders and the vigilante justice that precedes them. Credit goes to Michael Wimmer for portraying this to the utmost degree, making the calm before the storm as unbearable as the actual storm itself. In here, he beautifully shows us the peaceful and hopeful life that has befallen Paul Kersey (Bronson) ever since the events of the first film; he now has a new job in Los Angeles, his daughter has shown signs of recovery from her trauma in the first film and of course there's the obligatory love interest (Jill Ireland Who Else?). All of that is destroyed when a group of totally immoral, evil, horny, violent and downright nasty punks (one of them being Laurence Fishburne) do a nasty house invasion, with Bronson's Latina housemaid being the first victim. Needless to say, she becomes the subject of as-nasty-as "I Spit on your grave" gang-rape. Not long after, the daughter gets it too, with the aggravating fact that the gang engage in the rape of a mentally retarded woman. She then gets an even nastier fate; she gets brutally impaled on a fence spikes while trying to escape them.
Now you wonder why I had to go further in describing the sordid details of the movie. The simple answer to that question is that is it those scenes that serve as the engine of the entire juggernaut of a movie, the driving force behind all the well deserved-vigilante killings. If the first one tried to shy away from the cause of Kersey's outrage, here it splashes it on your unbelieving face. But to my great surprise the effect of these events seem less on Kersey himself. Instead of going down on his knees and trashing on the floor, he remains calm, stoic and as determined to kill. And where does that leave the viewer? Taking the emotional brunt not experienced by Kersey, they silently cheer him on as he proceeds to brutally wipe out the gang responsible.
Like what I said above, this is the Death Wish that fully indulges itself in the cathartic need of the people to dish out vengeance on people who deserve it. This film succeeds because it is very successful in creating that need and reinforcing it at the same time with the acts of brutality found in the second part of the film.
I also said that it is immorally thrilling because of the entire nature of the film itself. The rapes are presented in a graphic and voyeuristic manner that while some people might turn their eyes from it, some will be confused as to whether they will enjoy it or not. If anything, it adds to the bleak nature of the film, a crude way of making the viewers participants in the atrocities.
Overall, a great cross of a vigilante thriller and an exploitation movie. Only thing that mars this movie is its attempt in making a romantic angle. But then again it fails in the movie, a clear indication that viewers came to see the rapes and the muggings and Charles Bronson killing those responsible one by one.
In Death Wish 2, it's not all about the violence that makes it sick, it's the unhealthy anticipation for it to happen, both referring to the two brutal rapes/murders and the vigilante justice that precedes them. Credit goes to Michael Wimmer for portraying this to the utmost degree, making the calm before the storm as unbearable as the actual storm itself. In here, he beautifully shows us the peaceful and hopeful life that has befallen Paul Kersey (Bronson) ever since the events of the first film; he now has a new job in Los Angeles, his daughter has shown signs of recovery from her trauma in the first film and of course there's the obligatory love interest (Jill Ireland Who Else?). All of that is destroyed when a group of totally immoral, evil, horny, violent and downright nasty punks (one of them being Laurence Fishburne) do a nasty house invasion, with Bronson's Latina housemaid being the first victim. Needless to say, she becomes the subject of as-nasty-as "I Spit on your grave" gang-rape. Not long after, the daughter gets it too, with the aggravating fact that the gang engage in the rape of a mentally retarded woman. She then gets an even nastier fate; she gets brutally impaled on a fence spikes while trying to escape them.
Now you wonder why I had to go further in describing the sordid details of the movie. The simple answer to that question is that is it those scenes that serve as the engine of the entire juggernaut of a movie, the driving force behind all the well deserved-vigilante killings. If the first one tried to shy away from the cause of Kersey's outrage, here it splashes it on your unbelieving face. But to my great surprise the effect of these events seem less on Kersey himself. Instead of going down on his knees and trashing on the floor, he remains calm, stoic and as determined to kill. And where does that leave the viewer? Taking the emotional brunt not experienced by Kersey, they silently cheer him on as he proceeds to brutally wipe out the gang responsible.
Like what I said above, this is the Death Wish that fully indulges itself in the cathartic need of the people to dish out vengeance on people who deserve it. This film succeeds because it is very successful in creating that need and reinforcing it at the same time with the acts of brutality found in the second part of the film.
I also said that it is immorally thrilling because of the entire nature of the film itself. The rapes are presented in a graphic and voyeuristic manner that while some people might turn their eyes from it, some will be confused as to whether they will enjoy it or not. If anything, it adds to the bleak nature of the film, a crude way of making the viewers participants in the atrocities.
Overall, a great cross of a vigilante thriller and an exploitation movie. Only thing that mars this movie is its attempt in making a romantic angle. But then again it fails in the movie, a clear indication that viewers came to see the rapes and the muggings and Charles Bronson killing those responsible one by one.