7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks.
Starring: Charles Bronson, Hope Lange, Vincent Gardenia, Steven Keats, William RedfieldThriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
French: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The vigilante classic Death Wish is a cultural landmark, a cinematic journal of America's worst nightmares in the era immediately after Vietnam. Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood provided a preview three years earlier in Dirty Harry, which involved a good cop who concluded that "the law is crazy" and the system protected criminals better than the public. At the end of Dirty Harry, Inspector Callahan threw away his badge in disgust, but the character proved so popular that he was brought back two years later in Magnum Force, still a cop, still trying to work within the system (indeed, so much so that he became a target of renegades from his own department). For a full and complete expression of just how seriously law and order seemed to be breaking down at the time, the story had to be told from a victim's point of view, someone who had been so thoroughly abandoned by the criminal justice system that self-help was the only option. Brian Garfield's novel Death Wish appeared in 1972 and was quickly acquired by producer Dino De Laurentiis. Wendell Mayes (Anatomy of a Murder) freely adapted the story for the screen. At one point, Sidney Lumet was attached as a director, but Lumet decided to make Serpico instead. It would have been interesting to see how Lumet, with his gift for exploring moral complexity, would have framed the story, especially since Jack Lemmon was slated to play the lead at the time. But Lemmon dropped out after Lumet's departure, and the film became the fourth collaboration between British director Michael Winner and star Charles Bronson. Despite negative reviews—"revulsion" would not be too strong a characterization—the film resonated with audiences, and the character of avenging citizen Paul Kersey became Bronson's signature role. He and Winner would make two sequels together, and Bronson would make two more with other directors. But none of them equaled the power of the original, which traces Kersey's arc from mild-mannered, lawful citizen to remorseless urban gunslinger. (In the sequels, Kersey is merely a killer in hiding, waiting for the inevitable call to action.)
Cinematographer Arthur J. Ornitz shot Death Wish for director Winner shortly after finishing Serpico for Sidney Lumet. Despite similar locales and subject matter, the two films have completely different visual styles. Serpico reflects grit and urban decay, whereas Death Wish is less realistic in evoking the asphalt jungle. (Just as an example, the subway car where Paul Kersey stages one of his ambushes is remarkably free of graffiti.) Instead, Ornitz lights the frame for the richer texture of a nightmare, especially in the dark nighttime sequences where Kersey confronts the demons haunting the city. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is another fine release under its licensing deal with Paramount. The source material is in excellent shape (or has been well-restored), detail is first-rate, and the film's grain pattern appears natural and undisturbed by untoward digital manipulation. Blacks are rich and deep, and the remainder of the color spectrum is fully represented, especially in those portions of the film set outside New York (Tucson in mid-film, Hawaii at the beginning). The contrast levels in snowy scenes outdoors (e.g., the funeral) have been perfectly set to bring out detail without overwhelming it. The film serves as a visual scrapbook not only of how America's biggest city looked in the early Seventies, but also of how people felt about it, before effective policing, economic recovery and TV shows like Seinfeld completely changed its public persona. The 93-minute film occupies a BD-25, but there are no extras, and Warner has achieved a high (for them) average bitrate of 26.56 Mbps. The image is stable and free of artifacts.
The original mono soundtrack for Death Wish is presented as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, with identical left and right channels. Herbie Hancock's atmospheric and often unsettling score would no doubt sound better in a stereo presentation, if original stems are available, but it has decent presence and fidelity in this rendition of the original mono mix. Dialogue is clear, and sound effects have the appropriate impact, with gunshots loud but not too loud. (Bronson's Kersey isn't the Terminator; in fact, the opposite.)
Other than a trailer (480i; 1.78:1; 2:26), the disc contains no extras. Paramount's 2001 DVD also contained no extras other than a trailer.
Death Wish traces the tragic transformation of a gentle man into a killer who deliberately dares criminals to harm him because (as the title suggests) he no longer feels he has anything to lose. Novelist Brian Garfield objected that the film glorified violence, despite Bronson's insistence to the contrary, and that was certainly true of the film's sequels, in which Paul Kersey's goodness became little more than a disguise for his true nature, and his vigilante became a hunter seeking prey. But in the original Death Wish, Kersey remains as much a victim of violence as his family, and Winner's closing shot lets us know that the damage is permanent. Highly recommended.
1985
Limited Edition to 3000
1973
Slipcover in Original Pressing
1982
1994
Unrated Director`s Cut
1980
Day of the Woman
1978
1987
2016
2K Restoration
1979
Collector's Edition
1976
2017
The Dirty Harry Collection
1976
1986
The Dirty Harry Collection
1983
1981
1984
1985
1980
Collector's Edition
1983
1990