Death Wish 2 Blu-ray offers solid video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Architect Paul Kersey once again becomes a vigilante when he tries to find the five street punks who murdered his daughter and housekeeper, this time on the dark streets of Los Angeles.
A former coal-miner, B-29 gunner during WWII, and star of wacky Japanese
commercials—follow that link, you won't regret it—Charles Bronson is best known, of course, as an onscreen badass, a pistol-wielding action hero
who was making chumps quake in their shoes long before Schwarzenegger and Stallone and Willis. He was one of The Dirty Dozen. He played
a mean harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West. And, with 1974's Death Wish, he attained pop culture icon status for his
portrayal of Paul Kersey, a mild-mannered New York architect who goes on a violent crime-fighting rampage after thugs rape his daughter and murder
his wife. The film addresses the rotten core of the Big Apple, which was experiencing a nascent crime wave at the time, and it became controversial for
seemingly advocating that citizens take the law into their own hands.
Along with a few alleged copycat acts of vigilantism, Death Wish launched a franchise that spanned four sequels of mostly diminishing quality,
with Kersey finding himself in ever more contrived revenge scenarios. Although they pale next to the original and have aged rather gracelessly—the
street-punk fashion, for instance, is an unintentional laugh riot—the sequels are solidly entertaining in an ironic, so-bad-it's-good, what-the-hell-were-
we-thinking-in-the-1980s kind of way. This week, MGM is releasing Death Wish 2, Death Wish 3, and Death Wish 4: The
Crackdown on Blu-ray, and I already know what you're going to ask: Where are the first and last films? Good question, and one with a ready
answer. Paramount holds the rights to Death Wish—they seem to be in no hurry to get a high definition edition out—and Death Wish
V is currently licensed by Lionsgate. This leaves the middle three films, which have been sitting for some time in MGM's back catalog but are now
loosed on the streets again, with new 1080p transfers this time, and presented in their intended aspect ratio.
Death Wish 2 opens in Los Angeles, where Kersey has relocated after the horrific events of the first film. He's moved on, and is now dating
radio news reporter Geri Nichols (Jill Ireland, Bronson's actual wife), but his daughter, Carol—played this time around by the weirdly named Robin
Sherwood—is still withdrawn and mostly mute. Kersey and Geri go pick her up from the mental asylum for a day out on the town, but when a gang of
ridiculously dressed thugs make off with Kersey's wallet—while he's waiting in line for ice cream, no less—a cycle of violence is initiated that will find our
hero revisiting his vigilante ways.
The film is notable for its truly ugly rape scene, which had to be chopped down significantly for the theatrical cut—the version MGM has given us here—
but still uncomfortably disturbs. While Kersey is away, the punks show up at his house to rough him up, but instead, they find his housekeeper Rosario
(Silvana Gallardo) and proceed to sexually abuse her, ultimately killing her with a crowbar. Originally, there was a second lengthy rape scene, when
Carol is subsequently kidnapped and taken off to the gang's industrial lair, but it's only hinted at in this version of the film. You're not missing anything.
Director Michael Winner still convincingly sets up Kersey's quest for vengeance, with a sad and unsettling shot of Carol daring escape, jumping out a
second-story window only to be impaled on the spikes of the iron fence below.
This first act is certainly brutal, and with the motivations in place, the film moves quickly into all-out revenge mode, as Kersey tracks down and picks
off the offending punks—look out for a young Laurence Fishburne, in pink sunglasses!—while trying to keep his nighttime adventures a secret from his
girlfriend. He's also being trailed by Detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia)—whom you might remember from the first film—who's been brought in
by the LAPD to figure out who's committing all these gangland murders. The plotting is simple, but the pacing is quick and the action intense.
Think of Death Wish 2—well, the entire series, really—as a sleazier, dumber Taxi Driver, following one man hell-bent on cleaning up
the streets. The second film lacks any integrity and social insight that the first one had, and goes further into the realm of bloody, mindless
exploitation. Of course, this is precisely why the Death Wish sequels have a cult following, and there is over-the-top fun to be had
here if you can stomach it. Laurence Fishburne, for instance, holds a ghetto blaster in front of him as a shield during a gunfight, only to be promptly
shot through the face. A PCP freak named "Nirvana" (Thomas F. Duffy) goes into an absurd drug rage, tossing cops through air, and later gets
comically electrocuted. In the best scene, Kersey corners a hilariously mulleted punk with shaved off eyebrows who happens to be wearing a cross
around his neck. "Do you believe in Jesus?" Kersey asks, and when the thug responds in the affirmative, our one-liner quipping hero says, "Well, you're
gonna meet him," and promptly shoots the thug in the chest. Now that's comedy.
Let's start by acknowledging that the Death Wish films have never and—unless there's some picture quality witchery I don't yet know about—
will never look particularly sharp or slick. Not by modern standards. These were fairly low-budget productions, shot non-anamorphically on fast
and heavily grainy 35mm stock, and short of slathering the picture with detail-smearing DNR—which would be a very bad thing indeed—there's not
much that can be done to separate the content of the image from it's noisy medium. MGM has wisely steered clear of unnecessary digital
tinkering, doing only what's needed to get the films in strong high definition shape. I'm not sure how much restoration/clean-up was required, but the
prints of all three Death Wish films are practically spotless, with few—if any—white specks, and no scratches, stains, or debris. And while the
movies have been placed on single-layer 25 GB discs, I didn't spot any overt compression issues. To my eye, these transfers look faithful to source.
Presented in its intended aspect ratio, with a 1080p/AVC encode, Death Watch 2 looks as good as it might be expected to look here. On the
whole, the image is decidedly soft—owing to the way the film was shot—but there's an immediately visible increase in clarity from the previously
released DVD, with better refined textures and cleaner lines, especially in closeups. Color seems accurate and stable, with no obvious fading or
fluctuations, and contrast is spot-on for a film of this particular vintage. Whether or not you should upgrade will depend on how much you enjoy the film,
of course, but there is a noticeable difference from prior standard definition editions.
Cheaply shot and churned out, Cannon Films productions in general were rarely given much audio polish. Although stereo and even multi-channel mixes
were already common when the movies were made, all three Death Wish films released this week by MGM are in mono, via lossless DTS-HD
Master Audio 1.0 tracks. Considering all of the gunfire, explosions, and car crashes, you can easily imagine these films in 5.1, with immersive ambience
and directional effects galore, but you can't dock MGM for being true-to-source. All three films have rather flat dynamics, with tempered bass, a soft high
end, and much of the audio packed into the mids. Gunshots are typically wimpy, and most of the effects clearly sound canned, but there's some low-
budget B-movie charm here in the rinky-dink presentation. Death Wish 2 features a score by Jimmie Page, filled with humming synthesizers and
wailing guitar solos, and the music is decently clear and potent, though limited by the mono output. Dialogue is always understandable—if a bit husky-
sounding at times—but if you need or want them, the disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, along with French and Spanish Dolby
Digital 1.0 dubs.
Death Wish 2 is not nearly as "good" as its predecessor, but it does set the absurdly over-the-top tone for the other sequels, which get goofier
and more ridiculous and less believable as they go along. You can't take these film seriously, but take them for what they are—sleazy B-level shoot-em-
up revenge movies—and they at least deliver some visceral thrills and a few good laughs. Expect a solid picture quality improvement from the full-framed
DVDs, but there are unfortunately no new extras here to sweeten the deal. Recommended for Bronson fans, connoisseurs of so-bad-it's-good
entertainment, and drinking game enthusiasts.
