Death Wish II (1982)
5/10
Gory and violent sequel with Charles Bronson/Paul Kersey once again takes down nasty delinquents
30 August 2016
Once again , Bronson/Kersey blows away baddies with lots of explicit , eerie and grisly violence . Extremely violent follow-up to the successful 1974 movie based on the characters written by Brian Garfield , whose novel the picture is based on . This sequel was made and released about eight years after Death Wish (1974) . Second entry in the original five film series in which Kersey takes the law on his own hands ; nowadays , he has a new sweetheart in his life , the beautiful Geri Nichols (Jill Ireland) , a radio anchor woman . When Kersey and family are mugged by some attackers , he , then , seeks vengeance . As Paul searching for vendetta against cutthroats when his daughter -who is still catatonic from the previous attack- is victimized again . The five-times-weary urban vigilant hits villains , this time , hard . Following to successful crime thriller that created the Vigilante genre with Bronson as the main star as architect Paul Kersey (wooding acting by Bronson who looks bored and tired with this rehash material) turned the one-man vigilante and he tries to find the five sadistic street punks who attacked his daughter and housekeeper , this time on the dark streets of Los Angeles . Meanwhile , being pursued by the astute Police Inspector Det. Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) , as usual .

This second routine entry with excessive violence concerns about Paul Kersey , an ageing architect who becomes again into vigilante and wiping out the band of mobsters . The main amusement results to be to guess the kinds of deaths that Bronson executes against the villains , as he carries out retribution and vendetta . This is 2ª outing from the novel ¨Death wish¨ by Brian Garfield in which an architect taking the law into his own revengeful hands and acting as judge , jury and executioner . It contains suspense, noisy action-packed , intrigue , thrills and lots of violence . Initial excitement at the welter of violence son palls into boredom , only intermittently relieved by the preposterousness . Mediocre screenplay manages a couple of nice twists , but it's too formulary to pursue the ambiguities it reveals . Here filmmaker emphasising a hostile , nightmare terrain and relying his virtually sympathies with the confused , violent Paul Kersey . Bronson with his ordinary stoic acting displays efficiently his weapons such as ¨Harry the Dirty¨ and killing mercilessly nasties . Screenwriter re-wrote the entire script while filming but Charles Bronson constantly had problems with the dialog . It's certainly thrilling , though the morality may be questionable , even in this time, as the spectators were clearly on the Kersey-Bronson's side . Furthermore , it benefits from some good support actors , as here appears a nice secondary cast , such as : Vincent Gardenia , J.D. Cannon , Anthony Franciosa , Robin Sherwood , Thomas Duffy , Robert F. Lyons , and a young Larry Fishburne as ominous hoodlum , among others . It packs a screeching musical score composed, orchestrated and performed by guitarist Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin . Atmospheric cinematography by two great cameramen : Thomas Del Ruth and Richard H. Kline .

The studio , Cannon : Yoram Globus, Menahem Golam , produced this one in enough budget . This was the first film that both star Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner made with Cannon Films and producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus . The two would make a number of movies with them throughout the 1980s, including one more together, Death Wish III (1985). The motion picture was poorly directed by Michael Winner and the production shoot on this movie went for forty-four days . Michael Winner career was failed , alternating some hit as ¨the sentinel¨ and various flops as ¨Firepower¨, ¨The big sleep¨, ¨The wicked lady¨, ¨Appointed with death¨, ¨A chorus of disapproval¨, ¨Bullseye¨ and ¨The stone killer¨. Although he also achieved some important successes as the ¨Death Wish¨ series .

The original film ¨Death wish¨ had great commercial hit , it was followed by various extremely violent sequels to this successful 1974 movie , that's , of course , the best from the series , being starred by Hope Lange , Stuart Margolin , William Redfield and Jeff Goldblum . This first big hit motion picture was middling directed by Michael Winner such as the successive films with his main star, Charles Bronson , usually giving wooden performance . In the mid-70 Winner , in need to other hit smashes attempted with the sequels , but both , Bronson and Winner , looked increasingly passionless and mechanical in the later years of their partnership in this cheap as well as worn-out final series . The worst sequels in which Kersey goes on to torture robbers , all of them inferior and the violence could be deemed exaggerated , they are the followings : ¨Death wish II¨ by Michael Winner with Jill Ireland , Anthony Franciosa , JD Cannon and Vincent Gardenia , ¨Death Wish III¨ by Winner with Ed Lauter , Martin Balsam , Gavan O'Herlihy and Deborah Raffin . Death Wish 3 that would be the last and it was then not made for about another seven years . However , Michael Winner showed no interest in directing Death Wish 4 because he had heard that Charles Bronson had a terrible experience filming Death Wish III (1985). Following ¨Death Wish 4 : The crackdown¨(1987) with Kay Lenz , John P Ryan , Perry López , Soon-Teck-Oh directed by J.Lee Thompson . And ¨Death Wish , the face of the death¨ by Allan A. Goldstein being starred by with Leslie Anne Down , Michael Parks , Chuck Shamata , Saul Rubinek , Kenneth Welsh and Miguel Sandoval . In addition , an intended but unfilmed sixth movie was also to have a subtitle: 'Death Wish 6: The New Vigilante'.
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