DEATH WISH

Bruce Willis is notorious for having two modes of performance – one, he phones it in and is barely reactive – the other, he’s terrific, delivering indelible characters with charisma and verve. Usually it depends on what kind of director he’s working with as to what you’re going to get. Why he chose to headline a remake of Michael Winner’s Death Wish is anyone’s guess – it’s been remade recently by James Wan and Leigh Whannell (the pair behind the ‘Saw’ franchise) with Kevin Bacon as the everyman seeking restitution for his loved ones demise. Here, Eli Roth is at the helm – he made the infamous Hostel 1 & 2 – which was essentially a torture laden, xenophobic travelogue, The Green Inferno where a group of leftie university students protesting logging in the amazon crash land and are taken prisoner by a village of cannibals and Knock Knock where Keanu Reeves’ lothario plays host to a one night stand with two women who turn the tables on him and dismantle his life -  so Eli Roth is no stranger to dodgy politics and cheap exploitation. In this remake, Paul Kersy (Willis) is a surgeon at a Chicago hospital whose life is torn apart when home invaders rob his family, leaving his wife (played by Elisabeth Shue) dead and his daughter in a coma.

At first he’s numbed by the experience but he slowly begins to be drawn towards guns and the feeling of control they provide. There’s some very funny satire when he goes to a gun shop to purchase a weapon and there’s some sly humour about the lack of paperwork and the perfunctory safety process required to possess a gun. At first it feels like this may start to play out as an out-and-out satire but once the revenge killing kicks in, Roth’s tendency towards gore, splatter and exploitative violence takes over. It’s not entirely unenjoyable, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris plays the cop on the trail of Willis's hooded vigilante and the action is well-staged – though that’s not helped by some rather ham-fisted commentary on the proceedings provided by Sirius FM DJ’s discussing whether killing bad guys is a detrimental thing for society or something that is helpful. I’ve no idea why it’s even broached as a discussion. The film isn’t concerned with answering that – it’s not interested – it simply wants to entertain and indulge in the fantasy that self-actualisation through violent vengeance is somehow even possible.

There’s nods to Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs in the final act and Roth is absolutely on his game technically – it’s just Willis who’s barely there emotionally – so any emotional justification for the revenge killing is squandered, because Willis couldn’t even sell that he’s mildly upset let alone traumatised.

Paul Kersy’s character wears a grey hoodie to obscure his face, which felt to me like a nod to Jodie Foster in Neil Jordan’s The Brave One, a film which had an identical plot but flipped it into something more interesting by having a woman be the main character, feeling empowered through vigilante slaying, triggered by the killing of her husband. Similarly, Michael Caine’s turn in Harry Brown took an identical plot yet made it about a pensioner in a London tower block taking revenge when his pensioner friend is killed by local drug dealers. It’s not a story everyone can find interesting but there’s certainly something to explore if the filmmaker finds an entry point that’s worth exploring - a good example of that is Sean Penn’s film The Crossing Guard which starred Jack Nicholson as a grieving father whose son is killed by a hit and run driver and Nicholson’s character counts down to the day the killer is released from prison – that film also showed the struggle of the killer, dealing with his crime. It lent an added dimension to the film. If the audience genuinely does not feel manipulated by the filmmaker, it's a rewarding experience – but by doing a straight cover of the Bronson original -– thankfully without the leeringly awful rape scene (that featured a young Jeff Goldblum) – it does ultimately feel a little empty and by the numbers – if not a little tone-deaf given the current social climate around guns in the US. Still, its enjoyable enough if all you’re looking for is a pro-NRA fantasy about guns bringing emotional healing.