Death Wish 3

Prepare for muscles, mustaches and mayhem during CANNON FILMS FOREVER Month at Mondo Mondays, celebrating awesome ‘80s action flicks from the studio that blew up the world! Cannon Films closed up shop in 1994, but 30 years later, their legend lives on!

“He’s judge, jury AND executioner!” The one and only Charles Bronson returns as pissed-off vigilante Paul Kersey in this riotously ridiculous third installment of the Death Wish franchise.   In what may just be the ultimate “you-kids-get-off-my-lawn” movie, Bronson’s almost superhuman urban avenger brings out the heavy artillery to destroy a gang of vicious punk rockers who are terrorizing New York City. Road-worn and world-weary after his adventures in Los Angeles, Kersey longs to leave his fighting days behind him. But when he returns home to New York to visit an old friend, he finds that his pal has just minutes before been beaten to death by a gang of mohawked hooligans. When the local police chief bizarrely gives him legal carte blanche to take care of the problem (“We’ve got to clean up this city, and Kersey’s the man to do it!”), Kersey arms himself to the mustache with a ridiculously over-the-top arsenal of weapons (including his trusty .475 Magnum, over-sized hunting knives, chains and even a military bazooka!) to wage an all-out street war against the ever-increasing legions of bad guys. And adhering to the old adage that it’s better to teach a man to fish than to just give him a fish, Kersey also helps out the terrorized neighborhood residents by teaching them how to create ludicrous “anti-punk booby traps” in their apartments, leading to much hilarity as sweet old ladies lustily impale street thugs with sharpened battering rams. Completely insane and utterly devoid of self-control (the near-apocalyptic battle on the streets of New York which ends the film would have been cut from the Mad Max franchise for being too implausible), Death Wish 3 remains the crown jewel of Cannon Films’ crappy ‘80s revenge flicks. (Dir.by Michael Winner, 1985, USA, 92 mins., Rated R)