There is little to recommend director Eli Roth’s tepid, trigger-happy reboot of Michael Winner’s 1974 vigilante thriller in which a mild-mannered architect (Charles Bronson) used his military training to become a vengeful killer after thugs invaded his home, killed his wife, and assaulted his daughter. Moving the location from New York to Chicago, the story introduces Dr. Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis), who lives in posh suburbia, where his wife (Elisabeth Shue) is murdered and his college-age daughter (Camila Morrone) is left comatose in a bungled burglary. So, the trauma surgeon becomes a vigilante, donning a discarded hoodie and toting a Glock taken from a gang-banger. Armed and angry, Paul is determined to hunt down the three masked culprits and avenge his family. When Paul sees a nasty carjacking in process, he shoots the thieves in cold-blood, an act captured on video by a bystander’s phone, after which sociopathic Paul becomes a celebrity, famous on social media as the “Grim Reaper.” And the police? According to two detectives (Dean Norris, Kimberly Elise), there are just too many homicides—48 in just one weekend. Len Cariou appears briefly as Paul’s rifle-toting father-in-law and Vincent D’Onofrio costars as Paul’s troubled younger brother. Torture porn director Roth veers from Brian Garfield’s 1972 anti-vigilantism novel, turning the story into the amoral transformation of a man who saved lives but now takes them in a film that also panders to the NRA. Not recommended. (S. Granger)
Death Wish
Fox, 107 min., R, DVD: $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $34.99, June 5 Volume 33, Issue 4
Death Wish
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