Death Wish 3

Death Wish 3 is a 1985 American action thriller film directed and edited by Michael Winner. It is the third film and the last to be directed by Winner in the Death Wish film series. It stars Charles Bronson as vigilante killer Paul Kersey, and sees Kersey do battle with New York street punk gangs while receiving tacit support from a local NYPD lieutenant (Ed Lauter). Despite being set in New York City, some of the filming was shot in London to reduce production costs. It was succeeded by Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.

Death Wish 3
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMichael Winner
Produced byMenahem Golan
Yoram Globus
Michael Winner
Screenplay byDon Jakoby
(as Michael Edmonds)
Based onCharacters
by Brian Garfield
Starring
Music byJimmy Page
Mike Moran
CinematographyJohn Stanier
Edited byMichael Winner
(as Arnold Crust)
Production
company
The Cannon Group, Inc.
Golan-Globus Productions
Distributed byCannon Film Distributors (original)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (current)
Release date
November 1, 1985
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$9–10 million[1][2]
Box office$16.1 million[3]

Plot

Paul Kersey returns to New York City after being banned for a history of vigilante justice to visit his Korean War buddy Charley, who is attacked by a gang in his East New York apartment. The neighbors hear the commotion and call the police. Paul arrives and Charley collapses dead in his arms. The police mistake Paul for the murderer and arrest him. At the police station, Police Chief Richard Shriker recognizes Paul as "Mr. Vigilante". Shriker lays down the law before Paul is taken to a holding cell. In the same cell is Manny Fraker, leader of the gang who killed Charley. After a fight between Paul and him, Manny is released. The police receive daily reports about the increased rate of crime. Shriker offers a deal to Paul: he can kill all the punks he wants, as long as he informs Shriker of any gang activity he hears about so the police can get a bust and make news.

Paul moves into Charley's apartment in a gang-turf war zone. The building is populated by elderly tenants terrified of Manny's gang. They include Bennett Cross, a World War II veteran and Charley's buddy; Mr. and Mrs. Kaprov, an elderly Jewish couple; and a young Hispanic couple, Rodriguez and his wife Maria. After a few violent muggings, Paul buys a used car as bait. When two gang members try to break into the car, Paul shoots them with his Colt Cobra. Paul twice protects Maria from the gang, but is unable to save her a third time. She is assaulted and raped, later dying in hospital from her injuries.

Kersey orders a new gun, a Wildey hunting pistol. He spends the afternoon with Bennett handloading ammunition for it. He then tests the gun when the Giggler steals his Nikon camera. Paul is applauded by the neighborhood as Shriker and the police take the credit. Kersey also throws a gang member off a roof. Public defender Kathryn Davis is moving out of the city and Kersey offers to take her to dinner. While waiting in his car, Kathryn is knocked unconscious by Manny and the car is pushed downhill into oncoming traffic. It slams into another car and explodes, killing Kathryn.

Shriker places Kersey under protective custody, fearing he is in too deep. After Bennett's taxi shop is blown up, he tries to get even, but his machine gun jams. The gang cripples Bennett. Kersey is taken by Shriker to the hospital, where he escapes after Bennett tells him where to find a second machine gun. Kersey and Rodriguez collect weapons. They proceed to mow down many of the criminals before running out of ammunition. Other neighbors begin fighting back as Manny sends in reinforcements.

Shriker decides to help, and Kersey and he take down many of the gang together. Kersey goes back to the apartment to collect more ammunition, but Manny finds him there. Shriker arrives and shoots Manny, but not before getting wounded in the arm. As Kersey calls for an ambulance, Manny (who was secretly wearing a bulletproof vest) rises and turns his gun on the two men. As Shriker distracts him, Kersey uses a mail-ordered M72 LAW rocket launcher to obliterate Manny. The remainder of the gang rushes to the scene and sees Manny's smoldering remains. Surrounded by the angry crowds of neighbors, the gang realizes they've lost and flee the scene. As the neighbors cheer in celebration and with police sirens in the distance, Shriker gives Kersey a head start. Kersey gives a look of appreciation and takes off.

Cast

Production

Following the success of Death Wish II, Cannon Films proceeded in signing film contracts with prestigious actors and directors. Financially, their most reliable products were formulaic action films starring Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, and other stars of the genre.[4]

The new sequel to Death Wish was announced at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.[4] Charles Bronson haggled with Cannon over his fee so they offered the role to Chuck Norris who turned it down claiming that the violence in the movie was "too negative".[5]

Bronson was paid $1.5 million out of the $10 million budget.[2]

The concept of Paul Kersey facing a street gang which terrorizes elderly citizens was developed by screenwriter Don Jakoby. Jakoby specialized in science fiction films, having developed scripts for other upcoming films such as Lifeforce (1985) and Invaders from Mars (1986). His screenplay reportedly turned Kersey into an urban version of John Rambo, displeasing Bronson in the process.[4] The producers then tasked Gail Morgan Hickman to write other potential versions of the script. Hickman came up with three different script samples and submitted them for approval. He learned weeks later that they were all rejected in favor of keeping Jakoby's version.[4]

Once again, director Michael Winner was recruited for the film project. His latest films, The Wicked Lady (1983) and Scream for Help (1984), were box office flops and Winner was in need of a "surefire hit".[4] He decided against retaining the grim tone of the previous two Death Wish films, in favor of going gung-ho for the third film.[4]

Bronson said the film was "nearly the same as the first two Death Wishes that came before except this time he's not alone... It is a very violent picture but it all falls within the category of the story." Bronson did add however that "there are men on motorbikes, an element that's threatening – throwing bottles and that sort of thing – and I machine gun them. That to me is excessive violence and is unnecessary."[6]

Filming started on April 19, 1985 in a "crime-infested" area of Brooklyn. Other New York locations used for the film included the Queensboro Bridge, the bus terminal of Manhattan's Port Authority, and Long Island.[4] In early May, the production team moved to London. Winner found it useful that both cities had a lot of Victorian buildings. The police station scenes were filmed at the old Lambeth Hospital[7] in Lambeth, which has since been demolished. The neighborhood used for the gang war of the film was in Brixton, a district which was infested with real-life gangs.[4] Cinematographer John Stanier was previously director of photography in Oxford Blues (1984) and The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission (1985). He would subsequently film Rambo III (1988).[4]

The film includes a scene involving punks attempting to rape a topless woman. The role was played by Sandy Grizzle, the then-lover of the director. She would subsequently report of this relationship in the tabloids Daily Star and News of the World. She claimed that Winner whipped her and used her as a sex slave.[4]

The screenplay included a male-on-male prison rape in its early scenes. It was rejected and never filmed, but a similar scene was later included in another Bronson film, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989).[4] There were several other cut scenes. Don Jakoby objected to extensive rewrites of his script and asked for his name to be removed from the credits. The film used the pseudonym "Michael Edmonds" to credit its screenwriter.[4]

Although Jimmy Page is credited as composer, he had no involvement with the movie. Michael Winner reused Page's score for Death Wish II in the editing stage, and rearranged the music for the actual soundtrack, which included Mike Moran (credited as "arranger and conductor") on synthesizers.

The film incorporated two elements of the Death Wish novel by Brian Garfield. The first was the concept of a giggling Puerto Rican thug; the second was the use of a car as bait for thieves.[4] A scheduled novelization of the film was cancelled, since Garfield retained the exclusive right to write sequel novels.[4]

According to the book 'Bronson's Loose' by Paul Talbot, the original working title "Death Wish III" was changed to "Death Wish 3" because the Cannon Group conducted a survey and found that nearly half of the U.S. population could not read Roman numerals.[8]

In his introduction to the Audible audio-book of "The Saint Intervenes", Brad Mengel states that the plot of Death Wish 3 is entirely based on "The Saint in New York", both by Leslie Charteris.

Filming

Even though Death Wish 3 takes place in New York City, some parts of the film were shot in London to make the production less expensive.[2] As a result, some of the extras (both police and gang members) were British. When filming was complete, Michael Winner solicited the help of U.S. Air Force military personnel stationed at High Wycombe Air Station in the UK to provide dubbing with their New York accents for the accents of the British extras. Of the British actors who appeared, Marina Sirtis had previously worked for Michael Winner on The Wicked Lady (1983). She followed her appearance in this film with landing the role of Deanna Troi on the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.[4]

Weapons used in the film include a Wildey .475 caliber handgun, a .38 caliber snubnose revolver, a German World War II MG-42, a Browning .30 machine gun and an anti-tank rocket launcher.

Unusually, the end credits don't mention any work done in Britain (although several crew members have the word "USA" in brackets next to their titles).

Winner edited the film under the pseudonym "Arnold Crust".[4]

Reception

Box office

The film opened on November 1, 1985 on 1,460 screens and was number one at the U.S. box office for the weekend with a gross of $5,319,116.[9] It was number one the following weekend too.[10] The film earned $16.1 million in a seven-week run. Profits from foreign release, video, and television were sufficient to make this a lucrative release for Cannon films.[4]

Critical response

After its release in theaters, Death Wish 3 received primarily negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports an 11% approval rating based on 18 reviews, with a weighted average of 3.23/10.[11] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 18 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "Overwhelming Dislike".[12] Roger Ebert remarked that the film is a marginal improvement over Death Wish II with better action, directing, and special effects, but is still poor in absolute terms. He further commented that Bronson's acting showed his lack of enthusiasm for the film, and gave it one star.[13] Variety also described Bronson's performance as lifeless, though they said the film's main flaw was its failure to provide a convincing motive for Paul Kersey's latest killing spree.[14] Walter Goodman of The New York Times ridiculed the film's lack of realism, particularly that violent crime is surrealistically rampant, and that the repetition of the basic plot of the original Death Wish (i.e. that Kersey's closest friends and relatives are brutally murdered) grows more absurd with each installment of the series. He summarized that "There is not a moment of credibility in the movie and the ending is sheer chaos, and anticlimactic at that. Mr. Winner runs out of imagination before Mr. Bronson runs out of ammunition." However, he acknowledged that the film effectively created all the elements that make the Death Wish series appealing to its fans.[15] Some lambasted the film for sadistic over-violent content and the fact that a 64-year-old Charles Bronson was thrown into a Rambo-like situation. Leonard Maltin said: "Same old stuff; Bronson's 'ordinary guy' character is no longer convincing, since his entire immediate family was wiped out by the end of Part 2.[16]

In later years, it gathered a cult following, possibly due to its over-the-top nature, including lengthy action scenes (particularly the shoot 'em up finale), stylized violence, cheesy dialogue, and memorable one-liners. Its unreality has, in some film cult circles, been seen as "so bad it's hilariously good".[17]

Other media

Video game

The film was made into a video game of the same name by Gremlin Graphics for the ZX Spectrum,[18] Commodore 64, MSX and Amstrad CPC. In the game, the player controls Paul Kersey in the streets and buildings in a free-roaming, all-out gunfight with gangsters. It was one of the goriest games of its time, featuring multiple weapons with detailed, different damage patterns and the possibility to kill civilians.

Sources
  • Talbot, Paul (2006). "Death Wish 3: He's Back in New York Bringing Justice to the Streets". Bronson's Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films. iUniverse. pp. 58–74. ISBN 978-0595379828.

References
  1. Andrew Yule, Hollywood a Go-Go: The True Story of the Cannon Film Empire, Sphere Books, 1987 p. 113 ISBN 0722193890
  2. Beale, Lewis (June 23, 1985). "'DEATH WISH 3' ALIVE, DEADLY IN LONDON". Los Angeles Times. p. z7.
  3. "Death Wish 3 (1985)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-07-05.
  4. Talbot (2006), p. 58-75
  5. BROESKE, P. H. (May 19, 1985). "CHUCK NORRIS--AN ALL-AMERICAN HIT". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 154169712.
  6. Basler, Robert. (Oct 31, 1985). "Tempo: Another 'Death Wish' comes to life". Chicago Tribune. p. d13A.
  7. "Where was 'Death Wish 3' filmed?".
  8. Paul Talbot (9 February 2006). Bronsonýs Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films. iUniverse. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-595-82352-9.
  9. Greenberg, James (November 5, 1985). "'Wish 3,' 'Elm St. 2' Nat'l B.O. Heavies". Daily Variety. p. 2.
  10. "Fatigued B.O. Not Helped By Bows; 'Wish' Still Leads". Variety. November 13, 1985. p. 3.
  11. Death Wish 3 at Rotten Tomatoes
  12. "Death Wish 3 (1985) reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  13. Ebert, Roger (November 5, 1985). "Death Wish 3 Movie Review". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  14. "Death Wish 3". Variety. December 31, 1984. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  15. Goodman, Walter (November 3, 1985). "Screen: Death Wish". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  16. "Leonard Maltin", "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2011 Edition". Plume, 2010 1643 ISBN 978-0-452-29626-8 (p. 335)
  17. Duarte, M. Enois (August 15, 2012). "Death Wish 3". highdefdigest.com.
  18. "Death Wish 3 at". Worldofspectrum.org. Retrieved 2012-07-11.
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