Movie Review: Death Wish 3 (1985)

Genre: Vigilante Action  

Director: Michael Winner  

Starring: Charles Bronson, Deborah Raffin, Ed Lauter, Martin Balsam  

Running Time: 90 minutes  

Synopsis: Notorious vigilante Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) returns to New York City to visit a friend, only to find him near death after an assault by violent goons. Police Inspector Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter) coerces Kersey into cleaning up the derelict neighbourhood, where a gang led by Fraker (Gavan O'Herlihy) is terrorizing the remaining residents, including war veteran Bennett (Martin Balsam). Kersey gets to work confronting and killing villains and muggers, but taking down Fraker's gang will require a firepower upgrade.

What Works Well: The second sequel ditches any sense of cerebral internal conflict within Paul Kersey and adopts a less serious, high body count attitude packed with quotable quips. With Stallone and Schwarzenegger upping weaponry expectations, Kersey graduates to machine guns and rocket launchers, and the final 20 minutes transform a plastic set (London subbing for New York) into an explosives-filled war zone. Ed Lauter and Martin Balsam add gloss to the supporting cast, and Gavan O'Herlihy drips venom as the chief bad guy.

What Does Not Work As Well: Now in his mid-60s and showing it, Bronson is too old for this role, and the 32 year age difference with co-star and token love interest Deborah Raffin (as a public defender) just makes things worse. The ridiculous plot joins forces with hapless editing and uninspired directing to barely qualify for B-movie status, and the unrelenting levels of violence and brutality achieve self-defeating numbness.

Key Quote:

Kersey (to Shriker): It's like killing roaches - you have to kill 'em all. Otherwise, what's the use?

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Movie Review: Breakheart Pass (1975)

Genre: Western Mystery  

Director: Tom Gries  

Starring: Charles Bronson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland, Ed Lauter, Ben Johnson, Charles Durning  

Running Time: 95 minutes  

Synopsis: In the 1870s, a military train is on its way to Fort Humboldt ostensibly to deliver essential medical supplies. The mission leader is Governor Richard Fairchild (Richard Crenna), accompanied by his lover Marica (Jill Ireland), while Major Claremont (Ed Lauter) commands the military escort unit. At a rest stop, U.S. Marshal Pearce (Ben Johnson) and his prisoner John Deakin (Charles Bronson) join the train trip. But all is not what it seems, and soon murders and mishaps threaten to derail the journey.

What Works Well: Alistair MacLean adapts his own book and director Tom Gries enjoys constructing an Agatha Christie-type mystery in a western milieu, assisted by a lithe Charles Bronson and a supporting cast deep in talent. The final 30 minutes finally kick into gear and deliver a rousing climax, including a harrowing train-top battle to the death choreographed by veteran stuntman Yakima Canutt. The exterior vistas of the train traversing the landscape are elegant, augmented by a magnanimous Jerry Goldsmith music score.

What Does Not Work As Well: The first hour is more annoying than enthralling, the lack of clarity around plot and motivations leaving the characters dangling. Even once revealed, the conspiracy lands somewhere between incomprehensible and unnecessarily convoluted. For a wanted criminal finally captured by the law, Bronson's John Deakin is afforded a remarkable amount of freedom to skulk around.

Conclusion: And then there were guns.



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Movie Review: Cujo (1983)

Genre: Monster Horror

Director: Lewis Teague

Starring: Dee Wallace, Ed Lauter

Running Time: 93 minutes

Synopsis: In Maine, New England, friendly St. Barnard dog Cujo, owned by car mechanic Camber (Ed Lauter), is bitten by a bat and infected with rabies. Meanwhile, couple Donna and Vic Trenton (Dee Wallace and Daniel Hugh-Kelly) are navigating family problems: their young son Tad believes a monster lives in his closet, their Ford Pinto is dying, Vic has work problems, and Donna is having an affair. Cujo gets fully diseased and starts attacking people, then Donna and Tad find themselves trapped in a broken-down car at the isolated and vacant Camber property, with Cujo eager to continue his rampage.

What Works Well: Once mom Donna and her young son Tad are finally stranded in the car under the scorching sun with Cujo waiting to pounce and kill, director Lewis Teague finally finds some snarly horror moments.

What Does Not Work As Well: The adaptation of Stephen King's book takes a long time to get going. The uninteresting and overly familiar travails of the Trenton family occupy the first 40 minutes and amount to blatant padding. A lot of coincidences need to line-up for the horror premise to work, and although the dog make-up is appropriately hideous, Cujo is never far from an affable St. Barnard. The editing and special effects animating the dog attacks are always jerky and often unconvincing.

Conclusion: The bark is disappointing, and the bite almost non-existent.



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Movie Review: Family Plot (1976)

A comedy thriller, Family Plot is Alfred Hitchcock's final film. A pleasant enough experience enlivened by an excellent cast, the story features intersecting narratives treated with a light touch.

Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) is a fake psychic, milking small amounts out of desperate clients. But the elderly Mrs. Julia Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbitt) offers Blanche $10,000 if she can discreetly locate her long lost nephew who stands to gain a large inheritance. Blanche presses her boyfriend and taxi driver George (Bruce Dern) into service, and he identifies the missing man as Edward Shoebridge, who is apparently dead and buried. George also locates gas station owner Joseph Maloney (Ed Lauter), who seems to have had a keen interest in declaring Ed dead.

In the meantime, Arthur Adamson (William Devane) is a seemingly respected jeweller, but along with his lover Fran (Karen Black) runs an elaborate kidnapping scam, capturing then releasing hostages in exchange for precious diamonds. Joseph alerts Arthur that George and Blanche are investigating Edward Shoebridge's background, triggering more devious plots.

For what proved to be his final outing, Hitchcock chooses to maintain a peppy and humorous attitude. Family Plot contains no suspense or horror, almost as if Hitchcock was acknowledging his brand of wicked and sophisticated prey-on-your-fears cinema was no longer relevant in an era now offering darker psychological material such as Don't Look Now and more brutal punctuation marks as in Deliverance.

So Family Plot plays like an amateur investigative mystery engaged to a suave criminal tale. Blanche and George are a likeable scrappy and argumentative couple chasing after a dream payday by poking around the puzzle of a grave that may be empty. Arthur and Fran are smooth criminals dressed up as respectable citizens pulling off non-violent kidnappings. The two stories of course will come together, dragging along no shortage of plot holes and a void of competent law enforcement.

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman worked with Hitchcock on North By Northwest, and the most obvious look back at Hitchcock's past comes courtesy of a trouble-on-the-isolated-highway sequence, Blanche and George grappling with a sabotaged car then an attempted run-down. Even here Hitchcock chooses to inject an overdose of comedy with Blanche's histrionics inside the car defanging any attempt at invoking genuine danger.

The ensemble cast is sturdy and helps to drive the film forward. The trio of Bruce Dern, William Devane and Ed Lauter represents a strong collection of beady-eyed men up to various degrees of no good. Barbara Harris and Karen Black do their part to complete the set of greed-inspired characters.

Villainous secrets and colourful mischief intermingle around the Family Plot, but for better or for worse, the master of suspense signs off with a harmless wink.

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