I had no idea the NRA was adapting screenplays these days. Well, they have their own TV network, so I suppose it was just a matter of time before their paranoid fictional reality evolved into paranoid fiction. If you take nothing else from this review, do let me impress upon you that Hollywood is far from “just one thing.” Perhaps certain celebrities and certain films do lean left, but make no mistake, there are many, many films in which RW paranoia thrives, teems, and explodes into violent retribution. This Death Wish remake is slightly to the right of those.
Just like me, Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) is a home-owning city dweller about to send his only child, a teenage daughter, to NYU. And that is exactly where the comparison ends. Paul is a doctor who often attends to the victims of street crime. In the opening segment, he -sadly- pronounces a gunshot-riddled officer D.O.A.
Oh, make no mistake about the tone of this film –first off, it’s set in Chicago, the poster child for “what’s wrong with the liberal POV.” The off-plot minutiae is peppered with anti-liberal pokes – the radio talk show hosts bemoaning unrestrained city violence, the homeless folks “washing” windshields and being dicks about it, the disgusting health food bar an overweight detective refuses to swallow; heck, I’m sure the asshole unrestrained soccer dad exists solely for the purpose of needling some liberal issue. Yeah, you got me: we all love soccer and swearing at teenage girls. Now, if only there could be more abortions; that’s what we really want.
After Dr. Kersey pronounces an officer dead with just one touch – I think he’s the corpse whisperer – he’s called upon to save the man who shot him. “If I can,” responds the doctor (mostly to himself). Death Wish describes a Chicago riddled by a general dearth of, well, everything. In a city the size of 2.7 million (10 million in the greater metropolitan area), Chicago seems to have exactly one hospital, one emergency surgeon, one police department, and two detectives. Well, no wonder all murder cases go unsolved.
After the Latino valet makes the Kerseys for saps, the Kersey home in invaded. While Paul is working at the hospital, his wife (Elisabeth Shue) is murdered and his daughter (Camila Morrone) is put in a coma. Detectives Dean Norris and Kimberly Elise are in over their heads. Of course they are; the police are impotent fools. They only react after a crime has happened. That’s way too late, sheeple! Wake up! Start packing heat now!
Several NRA ads later, a frustrated Paul Kersey has turned a corner. It is time for the doctor to turn vigilante. Here comes justice.
I really am trying to separate the picture from the message here. Because while the message is a disgusting indulgence into paranoid self-preservation, the picture itself is nearly acceptable. The former tells us that
evil is omnipresent, and it knows exactly where and how vulnerable you are, and that’s when it strikes. Always. This is as irresponsible a message as arming teachers to stop school shootings. However, the film about a frustrated guy pushed a little too far and deciding to fight back is mildly exciting and mildly empowering. Select audiences will indeed enjoy Bruce Willis rediscovering his inner John McClane … or more likely here, his inner Bernie Goetz.
For whatever positive action and positive family messaging Death Wish has to offer, I can’t possibly promote the “Playing God” theme within the film. This is Dr. Kersey, everyman. Ummm … everyman, except that he saves lives by day and takes them by night. This is what you want in a film? To see yourself as the man who decides who lives and who dies? I don’t deny this had appeal once; but it was back when I was under twenty years old and loved Clint Eastwood films. Right now? This mentality, this morality, leaves me cold in a country of too many school shootings, and there’s almost nothing in the picture not somehow tied to the philosophy of paranoia and vengeance.
The saddest doctor in all of the land
Takes up justice, well ain’t that just grand?
Vigilantism you’ve sown
Is this credo your own
Or did you pry it from Heston’s dead hand?
Rated R, 107 Minutes
Director: Eli Roth
Writer: Joe Carnahan
Genre: Putting touchy-feely liberals in their place
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun…” (Is a good guy with an unrealistic screenplay)
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Home invaders
