★★★★★★★★★★

Film: Death Wish

Director: Eli Roth

Principal Cast: Bruce Willis, Elizabeth Shue, Vincent D’onofrio, Dean Norris, Camila Morrone

Plot in a nutshell: Remake of Michael Winner’s 1974 film starring Charles Bronson. Chicago Surgeon Dr Paul Kersey (Willis) is living the American dream, that is until a gang of vicious thieves break into his house, kill his wife and put his daughter in a coma. Frustrated with the inadequacy of the police, he arms himself with a stolen gun and embarks on a one man mission of revenge.

The Good: A perfectly watchable film, pretty entertaining on the whole, with some good action scenes and Dean Norris is always good value..

The Bad: Bruce Willis is so stratospherically miscast as Kersey that its painful. Yes we all know the guy is a seasoned action star but a pacifist surgeon turned vigilante? God no. Not only that but he seems half asleep throughout, gives Kersey zero depth, scant likability, and displays none of the charisma that made him such a star so many years ago.

In addition Eli Roth’s direction shows little flair for anything original save the odd bit of brutal action violence.

Best Scene: A big shootout in a bar cum stash house is pretty good.

Summary: It isn’t the worst film ever made and more than adequately passed the time – but director Eli Roth proves once again that he is nothing more than an overrated Tarantino wannabe and one has to wonder what the hell Willis is doing making movies these days -of late he’s become nothing more than a lazy, irrelevant actor, most of his films go straight to dvd and the last time he gave a good performance was 6 years ago in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. My advice to Bruce – give it up or put some bloody effort in next time!

Worth paying to see at the Cinema? No – wait for Netflix

Worth Buying on Blu Ray/DVD? – maybe if you are big Willis fan but don’t pay full price

Author: Will Strong aka Grosse Point Geek