Hacker Cinema
Death Wish
1974 · Film · 93 min
Part of Death Wish Collection
Directed by Michael Winner
After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.
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7 comments on Hacker News
I think of some older movie series like Dirty Harry or Death Wish which were developed over a long time but didn't focus on nostalgia but rather tried to make a really different movie each time. Some later Death Wish movies are silly (Charles Bronson's ability to get weapons in the mail is like Wile E. Coyote) but they're never the same. At least the last three Star Wars movie had a cast that seemed to come right out of Doctor Who.
EC Comics (and now I am showing my age for sure) attracted me when I was 12 years old or so. I am not sure if the "Saw" films reciprocate (also have avoided them), but the victims in the EC Comics (and the "Night Gallery" TV series is another example) often "deserved" their gruesome end. It was karma ... or "vengeance porn" if you like (wow, with "Death Wish", "Walking Tall", "Legend of Billy Jack", vengeance porn was the Zeitgeist of the 70's).
Older me is put off by "morbid justice", but I recognize the appeal.
A "lone vigilante" is indeed a useful idea for SF.
The local SF TV streamers and memers should re-broadcast Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" movies. Perhaps doing so will inspire civic responsibility in SFans! IIRC there's even a bit of drone technology in one of the later movies.8-))
I feel the same way[1], but it seems to be a minority view. Even bringing up the ridiculousness of this approach when I see it gets me weird looks from most people. It is really reinforced by movies shows where some hero picks up skills that take a lifetime to master in a weekend montage too.
[1]: With the exception of the death wish
OT, but don't you miss the Action Architect movies like Towering Inferno and Death Wish.
Since the '70s it feels like law enforcement (and juries to some extent) are informed by two movies much more than the Constitution and case law: Dirty Harry and Death Wish.
Can you tell me the name of the director, producer, or some of the actors?
That sounds like a very interesting movie I would like to watch very much. But search for Death Wish only turns up tons and tons of the one with Charles Bronson going postal.