Charles Bronson is back to his vigilante ways in Death Wish 2.

Death Wish 2

As I just learned, there are 5 Death Wish movies in the series – and I’m betting all are all as formulaic as the original.

Works like this – you know someone in Charlie’s family is going to be murdered by a band of creeps.

You know the police will provide no help & eventually try to arrest him – you know Charlie will go vigilante – you know he’ll hunt down all the creeps – and you know he’ll kill them all.

You just don’t know exactly who and how his family member(s) will be killed – you don’t know how he’s going to track the creeps down – and you don’t know how he’s going to kill them – but this last one in this is a peach.

Crime – which includes true crime and crime fiction – books, movies, and TV series – is the Number-1 genre in the world. One of the reasons is that the reader or viewer is trying to solve the crime before the main character or detective does. That process improves brain function & pads the IQ a little.

So watching a formulaic movie like Death Watch 2, for me, makes it more intense. I already know what’s going to happen – but don’t know what, who, or how – which shifts my brain into overdrive.

I found a lotta surprises in Death Watch 2.

The rest of the cast includes:

Jill Ireland – his wife in real life – 54 credits – 17 episodes of Man from U.N.C.L.E. – where she met David McCallum & married him prior to Charlie – died at 54.

Vincent Gardenia – 110 credits – also played the New York detective trying to track Charlie down in the original Death Wish – he knew Charlie was the vigilante but couldn’t prove it – he was also played Archie Bunker’s neighbor Frank Lorenzo in 10 episodes of All in the Family.

Fishbone was one of the creeps – that’s Laurence Fishburne – and don’t forget the III at the end – 122 credits – never much cared for him.

A Golan-Globus production – so there’s a lotta skin showing in the rape scenes.

IMDB describes Death Wish 2 like so: “Architect Paul Kersey once again becomes a vigilante when he tries to find the five street punks who murdered his daughter and housekeeper, this time on the dark streets of Los Angeles.”

For me, worth the time invested watching it.

Here’s the trailer.

I’m America’s Best Crime Writer

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Warner Books published Born to Be Wild in 1992 & it still sells every day at Amazon & Kindle. True story about certain members of the Warlocks motorcycle gang.

The story takes 21 years to play out – with many twists & turns – an amalgam of Sons of Anarchy & Breaking Bad – but these outlaw bikers make the Sons look like Cub Scouts.