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Death Wish - 2.5/4
Bruce Willis in a remade bloody revenge thriller directed by Eli Roth.
Sometimes negative hype really helps a bad movie to a half decent score. I saw what Eli Roth tried to do with this, trick us into thinking it was punch-porn masquerading as a family movie when in actual fact it's not nearly as brutal as you would imagine and aside from the ludicrously amped up soundtrack I feel it was restrained and well made for what it is.
The bad guys are cartoonishly destructive, the protagonist is relentlessly lucky and the tone of the action is dangerously close to comical in some moments.
The opening to the film is cloying and sickly but from the assault onwards it becomes a much more worthwhile film, a film that owes everything to the performance of Vincent D'Onofrio who provides some immense talent and legitimacy to a movie that seems quite nice, maybe too nice for Eli Roth to be at the helm of.
Politically it's a pro gun movie, anybody denying that is off their head. The gun fights are soundtracked so it's suitably removed from sincerity that it should be a fun movie to wind down a night out with or when your expectations are so low that it can only impress you.
I liked this film but I will probably mock it a lot from now on. It was very confused but rather sweet in a way.
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