IF WAR IS HELL THEN WHAT COMES AFTER?

When his wife is murdered and daughter raped by a gang of thugs, a liberal architect (Charles Bronson) turns into a vigilante.

No gun nut could ever resist this celebration of a man who cleans up the streets of New York on his own – too bad though that the filmmakers ignored the part in author Brian Garfield’s book where vigilantism turns out not to be such a simple solution.

The film is both cruel and absurd at times (with muggers behaving like a combo of apes and silent film villains)… but it is also exciting, well directed and Bronson’s character is naturally easy to empathize with.

1974-U.S. 93 min. Color. Directed by Michael Winner. Screenplay: Wendell Mayes. Novel: Brian Garfield. Music: Herbie Hancock. Cast: Charles Bronson (Paul Kersey), Hope Lange (Joanna Kersey), Vincent Gardenia (Frank Ochoa), Steven Keats, William Redfield, Stuart Margolin… Olympia Dukakis, Christopher Guest, Jeff Goldblum. 

Trivia: Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra were considered for the lead; Sidney Lumet for directing duties. Winner wanted Bronson’s wife Jill Ireland as Kersey’s wife, but Bronson didn’t want to see her roughed up by actors playing the thugs. Followed by four sequels, starting with Death Wish II (1982). Remade as Death Wish (2018).