After reviewing director John Sturges’ weak Ice Station Zebra yesterday, I decided to watch Sturges’ The Great Escape; one of the greatest fucking movies of all time.  The Great Escape has one of the best casts ever assembled.  Steve Muthafuckin’ McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, the list goes on and on. 

All these guys are prisoners in a Nazi POW camp.  After digging tunnels and acting cool as Hell for about two hours, they escape.  What did the kraut-eating sons-a-bitches expect when they put all those badasses together under one roof?

You know, I always go back and forth over which star-studded WWII Men on a Mission movie featuring Charles Bronson is better, this one or The Dirty Dozen.  I think I have to give The Dirty Dozen the edge because it’s a bit more action-centric.  Still, The Great Escape is one Hell of a good time.

Sturges directs the film with an invisible style.  He doesn’t do anything flashy; he just presents the material and has enough confidence in his actors to let them do their own thing.  Besides, with a cast this great, who needs to worry about shit like “motivation”?  Sturges’ only direction must’ve been, “OK, act like a badass annnnnd… ACTION!”

And what a cast of badasses we have.  McQueen simply gives the best performance of his career.  He’s never been as cool as he is here.  The motorcycle finale is all kinds of awesome and what makes it so great is the fact that McQueen did nearly all of his own stunt diving.  Garner is also outstanding as the smooth-talking “Scrounger”.  I particularly liked the scene where he vouches for the blind Pleasence and vows to keep an eye on him throughout the escape.  Pleasence’s inevitable fate is tragic and both he and Garner are terrific in their final scene together.  Bronson does a marvelous job as the tunnel digger who has severe bouts of claustrophobia.  Many critics wrote him off as being a “Stone Face”, but he gives a fully three-dimensional performance in this movie.  The scene where the lights get turned out on him while he’s in the tunnel is unforgettable. 

On top of the impeccable cast, Elmer Bernstein delivers one of his finest scores.  It’s definitely among the best in film history.  You’ll be whistling that shit days after you watch the flick. 

McQueen, Bronson and Coburn were also in Sturges’ excellent The Magnificent Seven.

The Great Escape is Numero Uno on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year 1963.

The Doctor (Joseph Maher) is this stuffy British dude who goes around South America teaching Torture 101 to classes of prospective dictators.  In one such class, he puts electrodes on a reporter’s gonads and tortures him to death.  This was a big mistake because the reporter’s best friend was Charles Bronson.  

If Death Wish 1-5 have taught us anything, it’s that you don’t senselessly kill any of Chuck’s nearest and dearest unless you want The Moustache breathing down your neck with a big gun.

The Evil That Men Do isn’t a great Bronson vehicle but it contained enough moments of badassery from the man that kept this die hard Chuck fan entertained.  The baddest of the badass moves Bronson did in this one came when some jackass tried to hit on his girl.  What did Chuck do?  He grabs onto the guy’s dick and twists on it WITH BOTH HANDS for a good minute or so.  From the looks of things, I bet old Chuck could get a job at Auntie Anne’s twisting pretzels.

This movie also has a sort of Kinjite vibe to it too.  Consider the one scene where Bronson poses as a bisexual swinger to lure The Doctor’s bodyguard into his hotel room where he sticks a knife in the guy’s neck.  You don’t see Chuck flirting with another man very often and when you do, it kinda makes you sick.  You know the guy was going to get killed something fierce if Chuck had to pretend to be a switch hitter in order to get to him.

There’s also a pretty funny scene when Bronson goes to kidnap The Doctor’s sister and hides under the bed to wait for her.  Little does he know that she’s about to get down and dirty with a lesbian (who has a giant bush) and he has to wait until they’re done fucking to make his move.  Chuck’s double take after he crawls out from under the bed was priceless.  I haven't laughed that hard since Obama won the Nobel Prize.

The thing that prevents The Evil That Men Do from breaking out and venturing into classic mode is Chuck’s awful supporting lady.  He dumbly takes her down to South America with him as part as his cover.  He should have dumped her once he got over the border.  This chick is just there to tell Chuck that killing is wrong, bitch and moan, and occasionally translate for him.  Had the screenwriters just wrote her out of the script, The Evil That Men Do could’ve been another Ten to Midnight.

What The Evil That Men Do does have is a killer ending.  Those who don’t want it spoiled, skip down to the next paragraph.  Chuck actually doesn’t get his hands on the killer, which may infuriate some people, but I dug it.  The ending is reminiscent of Freaks as The Doctor’s misshapen and disfigured former patients do a little surgery of their own on him with some rusty pick axes.  This makes sense to let The Doctor’s victims get their revenge because after all, Chuck was just avenging the death of a friend.  Now if Chuck was avenging the death of his wife or something; that would be a different story.

The Evil That Men Do was the fifth of nine collaborations between Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson.  Oddly enough, it was one of the few of their films that weren’t produced by Golan and Globus’ Cannon Films.  The film is a solid Three Star Bronson flick, but one can only imagine how much more sleazier things could’ve been had it been released by those guys.

I’m a big Charles Bronson fan but even I had a tough time with this preposterous, undercooked, and overlong thriller.  Old Chuck stars as a Russian major who is tracking down a rogue KGB asshole (Donald Pleasence) who activates “sleeper” agents in America by reciting a Robert Frost poem over the telephone.  (Err… Telefon.)  You see, these guys are actually brainwashed KGB agents who are trained to go blow up whatever Big Don says.  The CIA gives Bronson a foxy sidekick (Lee Remick) that has strict orders to do him in after he’s completed his mission.

The longwinded set-up (Bronson doesn’t show up until about twenty minutes in) gets Telefon off on the wrong foot and the movie never has a chance to play catch up.  Director Don (Dirty Harry) Siegel’s pacing borders on lethargic and adds to the movie’s woes.  Worse of all, there isn’t a whole lot of action in Telefon; which makes it one of Chuck’s lesser outings.  

Bronson delivers a solid enough performance although he’s never really given anything macho to do.  I mean he’s got a photographic memory in this one.  That’s not really badass and is actually kinda nerdy when you really think about it.  Pleasence turns in a hammy performance and is pretty funny while wearing an array of outrageous disguises and goofy wigs.

Lee Remick gets the best line of the movie when she says, “The things we do for socialism!”

In the 1880’s, a murderer hiding out on a train heading west picks off its passengers one by one.  Charles Bronson stars as a doctor/undercover agent who investigates and tries to catch the killer.  In the end, we learn that the murders are all a ruse for some gun runners who are in cahoots with a tribe of Indians and it’s up to Chuck to stop them. 

This odd mixture of Agatha Christie and Louis L’Amour (written by Alistair MacLean) doesn’t exactly work.  Much of Breakheart Pass is pretty slow moving and the search for the murderer’s identity is rather uninvolving.  While the plot is thoroughly convoluted, the film certainly has its moments.  Even though the murders themselves are lackluster, the occasional action scene will spark your interest.  The fistfight on top of the train was pretty decent as was the Indian shootout finale, but it was the scene where the train cars containing the soldiers went off the cliff in slow-mo that was the highlight for me.

Breakheart Pass is an interesting misfire.  You have to give everyone involved credit for trying to do something a little different.  The problem with that though is that you don’t want to see a guy like Charles Bronson try something different.  You want him to be Charles Bronson at all times and blowing away the scum of the universe.  The supporting cast is excellent and includes Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Charles Durning, David Huddleston and Bronson movie regulars Ed Lauter and Jill Ireland.  It was also the last feature film for famed stuntman Yakima Canutt, so old school western fans will want to give a look-see too.

Giff (Charles Bronson) is an American expatriate with a shady past who owns a nightclub on the titular beach in Peru.  One night, a beautiful French girl (Dominique Sanda) waltzes into his place looking for her former flame who just happens to be a spy.  Of course Giff gets involved with her plight and together the duo end up matching wits with a former Nazi (Jason Robards) who is looking for a fortune in gold sunken somewhere off the shoreline.

This is a muddled rehashing of Casablanca, but since Charlie B. is in the lead, I’d figure I’d give it half a chance.  I mean Casablanca is one of those movies that supposed to be so great and everything but is actually kinda so-so.  I thought if Bronson was in the lead instead of Bogart, they coulda had something there.  I was wrong.  Even though the original is much better, Caboblanco isn’t exactly terrible or anything.

The movie gets off to an extremely lackluster start with everyone being all vague and shit about their intentions and allegiances.  Once they cut through all that malarkey and Bronson gets to go into mini-Death Wish mode, things perk up a little bit.  What sinks the movie is that more screen time is spent on the inconsequential supporting cast and not enough on Bronson kicking ass.

This was sort of a change of pace for Bronson and I really liked him in this one.  He gave a mannered performance and really seemed to give it his best shot here.  Robards was decent as the slimy Nazi villain and I got a kick out of seeing Jaws 3-D’s Simon MacCorkindale as the smug British spy.  The weak link in all of this was Sanda.  While she looked great (and had an uncanny resemblance to Ingrid Bergman to boot) every time she opened her mouth it was like nails on a chalkboard. 

Unlike most collaborations between Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson (they did a whopping NINE movies together), Caboblanco is a bit underwhelming.   It’s long on chit-chat and short on bang-bang.  Even though Thompson allowed the climax to just kinda fizzle out, I did like the way Robard’s henchman bit the dust when the sword went through his eyeball.  And say what you will about Thompson’s plodding pacing; the man knows how to cram enough random scenes of nude beach bunnies into a movie to at least keep you interested.

Bronson wasn’t given a lot of good tough guy dialogue, so I’ll have to nominate “Your soul went right into the toilet!” as his best line in this one.

Charles Bronson stars as a grizzled, pipe smoking hitman (or “Mechanic”) who takes an upstart wet-behind-the ears assassin (Jan-Michael Vincent) under his wing and shows him the ropes of whacking people.  Since the Mob doesn’t like their number one killer bringing in an outsider, they hire Vincent to kill Bronson.

Bronson is excellent as always (and sports a pretty awesome 70’s wardrobe), but this movie runs on way too long and is filled with too many lapses in logic.  (Even for a Bronson flick.)  Take for example Bronson’s method of killing people.  Since he has to make it look like his victims die from natural causes, he has to go through some pretty elaborate rigmarole to kill them.  Fair enough, but Bronson goes a little overboard in his planning.  Like his first victim.  Bronson causes a slow leak in his gas stove, swaps out his tea for sleeping potion, and plants some plastic explosive in his bookcase.  When his target comes home, he starts the stove, drinks the sleepy time tea and passes out on the couch, giving Bronson adequate time to shoot the explosive from across the street and blow him up real good.  Um, look Chuck I know you’re supposed to make it look like an accident, but you really could’ve saved us fifteen minutes of screen time if you just shot the bastard as soon as he walked into his apartment. 

Director Michael Winner (who would go on to direct Bronson in the first three Death Wish movies) films the action sequences adeptly enough but lets the plot slip away from him near the end.  Once we learn that Vincent has been hired to kill Bronson, there is almost no tension between the two men (even after Bronson finds out about it).  Because Vincent went to the Mechanic School of Killing, he waits and waits and waits before killing Bronson and in turn, stretches the audience’s patience to the breaking point.  (Luckily for us, Big Chuck has a back-up plan up his sleeve.)  None of this is particularly suspenseful, although Bronson and Vincent do have some chemistry together, which will keep you marginally interested in the (all too predictable) outcome. 

Another qualm I had with this movie is there’s a strange, yet tantalizing plot thread that’s just left dangling and is never properly dealt with.  Early on in the film we learn that Bronson almost drowned as a child when his stern father threw him overboard.  Later, he visits an aquarium and freaks out because of all the underwater imagery.  (The scene where he does a frantic double take at Shamu is priceless.)  This is seemingly building up to some sort of water phobia that will pay off later in the film.  Does it?  Not one bit.  Actually during the finale, Bronson SCUBA DIVES to get onto his victim’s boat!  (Bronson even has a swimming pool in his living room, but uh… never mind.)  Why have all that fatherly exposition?  Why have the scene of Bronson wigging out in the aquarium?  I dunno.  Something had to pad this thing out to 99 minutes, I guess. 

The Mechanic isn’t one of Bronson’s best, but at least he’s still pretty fun to watch.  His performance alone is enough to keep you awake whenever things start to get bogged down.  Despite a lot of the glaring plot holes, the film does have the benefit of some awfully dated “mod” hippie scenes.  (“Dig it, man!”)  Just seeing the puzzled look on Bronson’s face when he comes face to face with all those fun-loving weirdos is worth the price of admission.  Chuck’s wife, Jill Ireland also has a brief but memorable role as a classy hooker.  

Charley B gets the best line of the movie when he imparts Vincent with this little nugget of Mechanic advice:  “You have to be dead sure.  Dead sure… or DEAD!”

AKA:  Killer of Killers.

Director J. Lee Thompson and star Charles Bronson teamed up for the EIGHTH time in this thoroughly ho-hum and excruciatingly routine thriller.  Chuck plays a newspaper man investigating the slaughter of a Mormon family and quickly finds himself caught in the middle of two warring Mormon clans (imagine Bible thumping versions of the Hatfields and the McCoys). 

Messenger of Death contains none of the over the top violence that made Big Chuck’s films of the 80’s so memorable.  The murder of the Mormon family that opens the picture is strong and there is a decent Chuck vs. three semis chase scene, but other than that, the film is a complete bore.  There’s also a needless whodunit subplot about a mysterious water company owner trying to run the family off their mineral rich land that eats up a lot of screen time too.  (Which makes it the Chinatown of Charles Bronson flicks, except that it’s not very good.) 

Even though the film is a total humdrum affair, Chuck still gives it his all and delivers another top notch performance.  The supporting cast which includes Trish (The Hearse) Van Devere, Laurence (Star Trek V) Luckinbill, Daniel (Murder at 1600) Benzali and Charles (Silent Night, Deadly Night) Dierkop are all quite good.  It’s just too bad this flick had to be so darn tame.  (With a few quick trims it would be perfect Hallmark Hall of Fame fodder.) 

Thompson and Bronson re-teamed for their final film, Kinjite:  Forbidden Subjects, the next year. 

Charles Bronson stars in one of his best non-Death Wish movies of the 80’s.  It’s also one of his most warped.

Charley B plays a cop who is VERY protective of his teenage daughter.  He’s also a big time racist who HATES Orientals.  (At one point he tells his superior, “Could you put someone else on the case who’s a little bit more sympathetic to the Asian community?”)  The only thing he hates more than his daughter’s horny boyfriends and random Japanese people are PIMPS; especially the ones who specialize in underage girls.  There’s this particularly sleazy pimp named Duke (Juan Fernandez from Crocodile Dundee 2) who kidnaps and taints the innocence of a Japanese businessman’s (James Pax) young daughter.  Bronson has to learn to put his prejudices aside in order to solve the case. 

But just because Charles Bronson has to watch his P’s and Q’s around the Asians, doesn’t mean he still can’t throw a black guy off a building and hit a Mexican with a crane though.

Kinjite:  Forbidden Subjects was the NINTH and final pairing of Big Chuck and director Lee J. Thompson, and boy was it ever a good one.  Sure, the film has its fair share of problems.  For one, there’s that subplot about Pax feeling up Bronson’s daughter that goes absolutely NOWHERE.  The whole time we’re expecting Bronson to find out what happened and either A) kick the shit out of the guy B) be torn between still helping the guy find his missing daughter and kicking the shit out of the guy, or C) not helping the guy find his daughter and then kicking the shit out of the guy.  Unfortunately NEITHER happens.  Nothing.  Not even when Bronson’s daughter recognizes Pax as her molester.  Talk about a missed opportunity to bring some moral issues into the movie, not to mention another opportunity for Bronson to kick the shit out of some more people. 

Speaking of that Japanese dude with the missing daughter, WAY too much time is spent on his home life.  Yeah I know that Thompson was trying to show the difference between Japanese and American cultures, but if he had cut out all of Pax’s back story, it probably could’ve saved us all about 15 minutes. 

Now it may seem like I’m harping, but in the scheme of things, these are really minor complaints.  What really matters is that Bronson is in top form and gives one of his all time best performances in this flick.  Not only that; but a lot of this movie is just too fucked up for words.  Like the opening scene where Bronson catches a dude tying up an underage hooker (a pre-Baywatch Nicole Eggert) and trying to shove a dildo up her ass.  Bronson sees this and gets so damn mad that he tosses the guy around the room and then says, “Now you’ll know how it feels!” before SHOVING THE DILDO UP THE GUY’S ASS!  (Thankfully, it happens off screen.) 

In-fucking-credible. 

Later in the movie, Bronson corners the pimp and he tries to bribe Bronson with his $25,000 watch.  Chuck gets extremely annoyed by this gesture and makes the dude EAT his own watch!  (“You’ll have to stick your head between your legs to tell the time!”)  We actually don’t see the guy shit out the watch later, but we can all be assured that when he did, it wasn’t a pretty picture.  Finally in the film’s coda, Bronson locks away Duke by putting him in a cell with a gigantic (and horny) male rapist.  (“Now that’s justice!”) 

Charles Bronson just HATES criminals’ assholes in this movie, folks.    

It doesn’t matter how many shortcomings a movie has, as long as it features Charles Bronson exacting revenge by violating criminals’ major orifices, its okay by me. 

If you asked your Average Joe off the street what Murphy’s Law is, they’d probably give you some lame ass answer like “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.”  Anyone who’s seen the Charles Bronson movie Murphy’s Law will know otherwise.  In it, Chuck plays a cop named Jack Murphy and HIS version of Murphy’s Law is (and I quote):  “Don’t fuck with Jack Murphy!”

You got to give Charles Bronson some credit here for trying something a LITTLE different with Murphy’s Law.  Instead of playing a burned out cop looking to avenge the death of his wife, he played a burned out ALCOHOLIC cop looking to avenge the death of his wife. 

You see, it’s the little subtleties like that that makes Chuck such a great actor. 

Murphy’s Law also sets itself apart from the rest of Chuck’s other adventures by featuring a foul mouthed juvenile delinquent chick (Kathleen Wilhoite from Road House) as his partner in crime as well as a FEMALE villain (Carrie Snodgress). 

Story goes that this chick Chuck put away years ago for murder is out of the nuthouse and looking to frame Chuck for the murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend.  Since Chuck is a drunk and his late wife was a two-timing stripper that makes him prime suspect numero uno.  So the cops cuff him to a tomboy car thief who calls Chuck stuff like “scrotum cheeks” and put them in a holding cell.  But since this is Charles Bronson we’re talking about here, he’s not going to take things lying down, so he steals a helicopter and escapes.  He thinks it’s a big time mobster trying to set him up so he goes to his penthouse and plays Russian Roulette with him.  Of course Chuck guessed wrong and royally pisses off the gangster, so not only is there a crazy chick with a crossbow after him, but a lot of Italian goombas from Central Casting too. 

What’s Chuck to do?  Of course you know.  Blow shit up, shotgun a few turkeys, and throw psychotic chicks off of high balconies.

Murphy’s Law is no Death Wish 2, but it’ll certainly do in a pinch.  The movie suffers from a number of faults, the biggest of which is having too many gratuitous supporting characters.  The movie should’ve chosen to go with either the gangsters as the villains OR the nutty psycho woman.  Having both kinda jumbles things up a bit, and makes things not quite as streamlined as it should’ve been.  Also, you can only take so much of Wilhoite’s character before she starts to grate on your nerves.  If Chuck flew solo on this one, it might’ve been better, but at least they do share a few good moments here and there together. 

I could sit here and pick this thing apart, but the truth of the matter is that Murphy’s Law features enough of Chuck doing what he does best, namely shooting people saying funny shit like “What is this, Romper Room?”, to make it wholly worthwhile for any dyed in the wool Bronson fan. 

A psycho serial killer is on the loose murdering young girls.  This guy is a little different than the rest though because he likes to strip down to nothing but a pair of surgical gloves and chase naked women around with a very large switchblade before turning their innards into the consistency of pulled pork B-B-Q. 

Since Charles Bronson is on the case though, it’s all good.

The problem is that this killer is SMART.  He’ll go see a movie and be obnoxious and stuff; then when the movie starts, he sneaks out and commits his murders before sneaking back into the theater, giving himself an airtight alibi.  (If movie theaters had a stronger ticket checking policy, this would never have happened.)

Chuck knows he’s the killer and even confronts him with his electric Pocket Pussy (“This is used for jacking off!”), but since there’s no evidence to convict him, the killer goes free.  That don’t matter to Chuck though, cuz he’ll make something up in order to catch him.  Unfortunately, his goodie two shoes partner (Andrew Stevens, Chuck’s co-star from Death Hunt) learns that Chuck has been falsifying evidence so he rats him out.  Chuck gets kicked off the force, but once the killer comes after his daughter, Chuck goes into full on Death Wish mode.

10 to Midnight is one of Chuck’s best.  It’s an unheralded classic that really ratchets up the suspense and provides Bronson’s fans with lots of great moments.  The scene where Chuck plants evidence on the killer?  Priceless.  The scene where Chuck goes to a cafeteria and says, “I hate quiche!”  Awesome.  And who could forget the immortal final scene of the movie where the looney tunes nudist killer proclaims how he’ll never go to prison because he’s insane and says, “You’ll hear from me!” 

Chuck retorts with, “No we won’t!” and a bullet to the face.

Director J. Lee Thompson, who directed virtually every movie Chuck made during the 80’s, does a magnificent job, especially in the scenes where the naked nutjob stalks his victims.  The opening double murder where the nude killer chases a naked chick through the woods is as good as anything in a Jason movie, and the scene where the murderer preys upon four scantily clad nurses (among them are a young Kelly Preston and Ola Ray from the Thriller music video) is pretty terrific. 

The performances are also great.  Chuck delivers as always, meaning that he plays himself and blows away scumbags with a very big gun.  Stevens is good as his Boy Scout partner, but much of the movie’s effectiveness is due to a genuinely creepy performance by Gene Davis as the serial killer with a penchant for running around completely naked.

Of course, Big Chuck is given the best lines of the movie, my favorite being, “His knife is his penis!”

Thompson and Bronson re-teamed the next year for The Evil That Men Do.

Yul Brynner (with hair!) stars as Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in this wearisome western written by Robert (Chinatown) Towne and Sam (The Wild Bunch) Peckinpah and directed by Buzz (The Hunter) Kulik.  Villa coerces a gringo pilot (Robert Mitchum) into helping with the revolution by ordering him to drop dynamite from his airplane onto Mexican soldiers. 

You know for a movie called Villa Rides, Villa doesn’t really spend a lot of time riding.  Heck we don’t actually see him on his damn horse until the movie’s about halfway over and even then, he’s not riding the horse, just sitting on it watching the action unfold.  In fact, too much of the movie focuses on Mitchum’s character as Villa doesn’t even show up till about 25 minutes into the movie. 

If you’re looking for a history lesson about the Mexican Revolution, forget it.  All the historical facts are muddled as all get out as we really never learn who Villa is rebelling against or why.  What we do get is a moderately entertaining but instantly forgettable oater. 

Charles Bronson has the best moments of the film as Villa’s trigger happy right hand man (I especially liked the scene where he lined up three Mexican soldiers back to back so he could save on bullets), but the two leads are rather lackluster and don’t have much chemistry together.  Brynner is his usual stoic self, but he doesn’t even bother speaking with a Mexican accent until the movie’s almost over!  What’s up with that Yul?

If anything, this movie’s at least worth watching for the rare sight of Brynner without his patented chrome dome.

Bronson gets the best line of the film after he shoots a belligerent man in a bar and says, “Go outside and die!  Where are your manners?”

This film along with several others will be released on DVD for the first time this June by Legend Films.  For more information regarding this DVD, visit www.legendfilms.net.

Charles Bronson stars as a simple Canadian fur trapper who rescues a dog from the vicious leader of a dog fighting ring (Ed Lauter, not Michael Vick).  Lauter gets pissed that he stole his best dog and tries to gun Bronson down, but this is Charles Bronson we’re talking about here and Chuck will have no part of THAT.  So a big shootout ensues and then Lauter does the unthinkable, HE KILLS THE DOG! 

Okay, remember how Bronson reacted in Death Wish when his wife was murdered?  How do you think he’s gonna take someone killing his DOG?

You already KNOW how Old Chuck will react:  By giving those bastard’s guts a new sun roof.

Now in Death Wish when his wife was murdered, it took Chuck a good half hour before he started turning people into walking anatomy subjects, but in Death Hunt he starts blowing people away almost immediately.  After all, this is a dog; MAN’S BEST FRIEND we’re talking about here people, not some broad.  No wonder Chuck doesn’t waste any time giving these dudes a buckshot breakfast.

So a grizzled Mountie (Lee Marvin) and his crew (Andrew Stevens and Carl Weathers) are sent out to Bronson’s cabin to bring him to justice.  Marvin says, “Look Chuck, why don’t you just let me take you to jail.  We were both in The Dirty Dozen together, so what do you say, for old time’s sakes, can I please take you to the pokey, please?” 

You can probably guess what Chuck’s answer is:  “I think I’ll fill a couple Mounties with more lead than a Number 2 pencil instead.”

Well Marvin doesn’t like that so he gets Apollo Creed to blow up Chuck’s summer home, but Chuck has home owner’s insurance; which is to say he has a sawed off shotgun and an itchy trigger finger.  

He takes off into the wilderness and Marvin and Co. give chase.  Then the movie settles down and becomes First Blood in three feet of snow. 

Chuck is great in this flick.  That is to say he’s Charles Bronson.  He’s so bad ass in this flick that even though he’s Canadian, he doesn’t even bother to say “about” as “aboot”.  Marvin is equally good as the Mountie who is sympathetic to his plight, but nevertheless has to do his job and bring him in.

Oh yeah, and if you sneeze you’ll miss Angie Dickinson. 

Sure the film gets a bit sluggish in the middle section (things get mighty strange about halfway in when the film takes a Deliverance style turn when Lauter tries to put the moves on Stevens), but of course things are going to be a little slow going when your main characters are walking through three feet of snow.  Despite the occasional lapses in pacing, Death Hunt proves the rule that any Bronson movie with the word “Death” in the title is a good time. 

Stevens also co-starred with Big Chuck two years later in 10 to Midnight and Lauter later was in the classic Death Wish 3 with Bronson.  The director, Peter Hunt (who slyly got his name in the title) also did On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and later directed Bronson in Assassination.  The screenwriters went on to write Poltergeist the next year.  

Chuck hardly says 100 words in this flick so it’s up to Carl Weathers to get the best line of the movie.  There’s a great scene when he wakes up next a fat Eskimo prostitute and turns to Stevens and says, “You want a piece of this buffalo woman?”

Charles Bronson stars as an independent hitman in this lethargic Italian lensed crime flick.  In the opening scene, Bronson gets chased in his Mustang along the narrow streets of the Virgin Islands before being shot TWICE and nearly getting himself blown up, but he still somehow manages to survive.  He goes to jail for blowing away his attackers but gets off using the old self defense routine and quickly goes back to the business of killing folk.  After assassinating an old dude on a yacht and a race car driver (while he’s still on the track no less) Bronson learns that he had been set-up by his girlfriend (Bronson’s real life wife and frequent co-star Jill Ireland), who also happens to be crime boss Telly Savalas’ old lady.  Even though she almost got him killed, Bronson still loves her and shows it by banging her on a bag of flour.  Then Savalas pays Bronson off to kill her, but Chuck decides to blow away Kojack instead.  When Bronson learns that she’s been playing him like a fiddle the whole time, he shoots her and her scummy boyfriend before getting mowed down by the cops. 

Violent City will have enough merits for die hard Bronson fans, but for the most part, it’s pretty bad.  The flick moseys along at a listless pace and things get downright boring whenever Chuck isn’t Lee Harvey Oswalding people to death.  Consider the scene where he assassinates the race car driver.  Sure the guy ends up turning into a ball of fire and crashing through a brick wall, but it takes FOREVER for Bronson to pull the goddamn trigger.  Director Sergio Sollima pads out the scene mercilessly with endless shots of Bronson putting his rifle together before finally shooting it.  It’s not suspenseful in the least and really drains the momentum out of the scene. 

Bronson’s laconic performance is easily the best thing the movie has going for it.  Like most Bronson movies, he speaks with a limited vocabulary (it takes him ten whole minutes before he says ANYTHING), but for the most part, he lets his sniper rifle do most of the talking.  Savalas (who also co-starred in The Dirty Dozen with Chuck) is fun to watch but Ireland is merely okay as the bland love interest.  At least Chuck allowed her to show off a little skin in this one. 

The car chase that opens things up is quite exciting, but action wise, there is nothing else in the film that even comes close to matching it.  The snappy score by Ennio (A Fistful of Dollars) Morricone helps a lot, but in the end, this is just another middling pre-Death Wish Chuck vehicle.  

AKA:  The Family.