Death Wish 3

• Directed and Edited by Michael Winner
• November 1, 1985
• Based on characters created by Brian Garfield

Paul Kersey takes on New York street gangs while receiving support from an NYPD lieutenant.

After the events of the first two movies it appears that Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is zipping around the country as a vigilante based on information presented here. You could even look at him as a good guy serial killer. Only killing criminals but he’s so essentially a serial killer. And weirdly it’s not entirely unknown to law enforcement.

Which connects to the change in plot which would play out in later films in one fashion or another. It is that in Death Wish 3 rather than the police being after him he’s basically working for Police Chief Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter) who we never saw on camera but was there on the night Paul was brought to the police station. Because that’s how it works.

This is a very 80s B-movie. The cops engage in casual police brutality. The gang members look like they’re from The Warriors. And it makes it all a little silly yet very entertaining. On the surface this is ridiculous and outlandish. Once you get below the surface it still is and works because it never pretends to be anything beyond a violent movie.

Paul’s casual vigilantism seems to be why he came back to NYC. He received a letter from military buddy Charley (Francis Drake) alluding to the crappy situation of his neighborhood. It is less about him jonesing to be a vigilante and more about doing what others cannot. So now Paul finds himself squatting in his murdered friend’s apartment to start a-hunting scum. The residents of the apartment building are an American cross-section. This is quite possibly the most unnaturally ethnically and socially diverse group of people I have ever seen. I guess that’s to undercut some of the negative comments from the previous work.

If there is a point of view in this movie it is that the cops are ineffective and the gun laws in New York City suck. Law enforcement is more concerned with protecting criminal rights than it is with protecting the citizens. Nothing that isn’t being said today. Death Wish 3 does it like a meaty hand across the face.

Charles Bronson is not only tougher looking but tougher acting in this. He is a few pounds heavier than in the first two movies. And when the first shots of him come on the screen he looks like he’s about ready to kick somebody’s ass and just happened to come across these gang members. And finally Paul Kersey’s engineering skills come into play in this. And I’m not talking about the halfhearted nail board he builds. He builds a little trigger trap that knocks a guy’s teeth out.

This is unrealistically violent with elements that just aren’t logical. Our police captain seems a little more bloodthirsty than one would expect a law enforcement official that has risen in the ranks to be. At least overtly. The police are comically powerless. But this is about a one-man army coming to clean things up. Charles Bronson kicking butt as much as he can. And there were few big screen tough guys like Charles Bronson. 

That’s what carries this film. Charles Bronson. He just comes on and is the manliest of the manly and the baddest of the bad. And nobody knows what they’re getting into when they mess with him. Do the right thing and you’ll be fine. Cross him or cross the law and your ass is grass.

Balsam and Bronson are the two finest actors here. Everybody else kind of phones it in. Heck I’m not even sure if they’re trying to be serious or trying to be comedic. At some point it’s like they’re trying to film some weird comedy. You can’t get a rocket launcher as easily as Kersey did! They treat it like it was accessible through the Sears catalog. Winner was British and I am curious if that had something to do with the European view of gun accessibility in the US. Or maybe it was just an excess of 80s action thrillers.

Yet it’s entertaining. It’s brutally violent. This is to satisfy people that want to see lots of guns and lots of explosions. Is Death Wish 3 high art? No but it’s violent and entertaining and is bad in all the good ways.