It would be enormously misleading to call Eli Roth’s Death Wish a remake of the controversial 1974 movie, about a mild-mannered man who becomes addicted to vigilante violence after the assault of his daughter and the murder of his wife. The original Death Wish was a serious drama that asked difficult questions about the personal and societal impact of violence. The new film is a shallow action thriller that decides, early on, that vigilante violence is awesome, and has few (if any) negative consequences.
They may have similar plots, but Eli Roth has changed the tone of Death Wish so much that for all intents and purposes it is no longer a remake of Death Wish. If anything, it’s a remake of Death Wish 2, the first film in the franchise to completely miss the point by turning Charles Bronson’s character into some kind of righteous avenging angel of death, instead of a mentally-ill murderer who happens to have a tragic backstory.
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They may have similar plots, but Eli Roth has changed the tone of Death Wish so much that for all intents and purposes it is no longer a remake of Death Wish. If anything, it’s a remake of Death Wish 2, the first film in the franchise to completely miss the point by turning Charles Bronson’s character into some kind of righteous avenging angel of death, instead of a mentally-ill murderer who happens to have a tragic backstory.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...