This weekend sees the release of Eli Roth’s remake of Michael Winner’s “Death Wish” (read our review here). Remaking “Death Wish” is a strange undertaking, because the premise of a regular person rising up to “clean up the streets” has been done multiple times since 1974 (and essentially, the four “Death Wish” sequels are remakes of the original in and of themselves). The five-year span in which “Dirty Harry” (1971), “Death Wish” (1974), and “Taxi Driver” (1976) came out somehow metamorphosed the three films into something that has influenced decades of revenge action movies, usually involving government or law enforcement of some kind doing the revenge (“Taken,” “The Punisher,” “Out For Justice,” etc. etc.), which does take something away from the concept of the everyman story of “Death Wish” and the moral complications that come with it.
For the purpose of this list, revenge films that have protagonists who are exceptional in some way are left off. This is a rundown of revenge films fronted by everyday people, films that followed the “Death Wish” template, or forged their own path from it. Whether they are successful films or not, these ten films beat Roth, Joe Carnahan, and the executives over at MGM to the punch in terms of a “Death Wish” remake.
“The Exterminator (1980)/The Exterminator 2 (1984)”
“The Exterminator” is a prime example of a film inspired by “Death Wish,” but without understanding the nuanced nature of that film’s revenge. The setup and location is nearly identical for John Eastland (Robert Ginty), but instead of family, it’s his Vietnam war buddy (Steve James), and instead of murder, his friend is left crippled. Regardless, that doesn’t stop Eastland from taking a flamethrower to the streets of New York City to rid it of criminals. The first film finds one foot in gritty revenge territory, and another foot in camp, and never quite strikes a balance. The second film – much like the” Death Wish” sequels – was produced by Cannon, and works slightly better as a schlocky B-movie with a fun over-the-top performance from Mario Van Peebles as the villain. Regardless, neither film does anything offensively wrong, or exactly right, except act as slightly passable crime/action films with awesome VHS artwork that you likely saw in a video store once upon a time.
“Ms. 45 (1981)”
Perhaps the single-most perfect analog to “Death Wish,” Abel Ferrara’s grimy New York revenge film is a complex examination of how violence is a disease that spreads like a cancer from person to person. Anchored by an outstanding performance by Zoe Lund as Thana – a mute woman who slowly becomes a vigilante with a .45 after she is attacked and raped twice in one day – “Ms. 45” is lean (at 80 minutes), visceral, affecting, and by the end, heartbreaking. Outside of Ferrara’s authentically-gritty locales, the film rests solely on the shoulders of Lund. With no dialogue or inner monologue to guide us, the story unfolds on her face, from the bend all the way to the break. And Ferrara has no interest in revenge “fantasy.” With a ground-level view, he depicts this as merely life for this character, which gives us true empathy for Thana, but also nearly shatters that moral compass in the film’s final moments. Harrowing, but immensely-crafted, Ferrara’s film is one of the few “Death Wish” copycats to stand up on its own.
“Falling Down (1993)”
“I’m the bad guy? How did that happen?”
Messy, angry, unsubtle, and sadly more relevant than ever, Joel Schumacher’s strongest film comes down hard on the toxicity of white male entitlement, specifically the dark implications that occur when that entitlement is threatened in any way. Michael Douglas gives one of his most interesting performances as an unemployed defence engineer who leaves his car in traffic on a hot California day and begins lashing out violently at anyone who crosses his path — from Korean convenient store owners to neo-Nazis – just to get to his ex-wife’s (Barbara Hershey) house for his daughter’s birthday party. While heightened to occasionally ridiculous heights, “Falling Down” works as a scathing, sometimes funny, often scary satire of the American Dream, and the insistence of having everything exactly the way you want it, right now, is terrifying. The film doesn’t work as well as a police detective story (Robert Duvall as the retiring detective is solid, but occasionally misplaced), but when it’s “Death Wish” without a through line for the vigilante, it makes it both effective and dangerous.
“Dangerous Men (2005)”
Sometimes a film comes along that hits that sweet spot in the gulf between sincerity, ambition, and ineptitude. Such is the case with “Dangerous Men,” the passion project of Iranian writer/director/producer/editor/composer John S. Rad. This would-be crime epic is about Mina (Melody Wiggins), a woman who goes undercover as a lady of the night to kill scummy men after her fiancée (Michael Hurt) is killed by a biker gang… until is isn’t, and becomes about a police detective who wants to solve his brother’s murder, and finds himself confronting the leader of the biker gang, Black Pepper (who looks like a McConaughey-esque surfer dude). Rad began filming in the ’80s, finished it in the ’90s, and finally released the film in the mid-2000s. In complete fairness to the late Rad, there’s an absolute attempt to make a revenge film about toxic masculinity, but it’s clear that the language barrier squeezes out any potential nuance, all to our benefit as the viewer. This is truly an un-ironically enjoyable midnight movie.