An Exercise In Nonsense

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

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. Death Wish II once again has Charles Bronson going against some thugs and this time on the streets of L.A, now let me start with the good stuff which is Bronson as Kersey who is once again excellent and badass in the role plus that fight scene in the Hospital was dope, the rest of the Cast does a great job too and the action is nicely done and the soundtrack is very 80's style. As far as flaws go? The film at times feels like it's going to end and it doesn't that happens somewhere at the last 30 to 32 minutes before the movie ends plus i hated how his daughter died it was both kinda heroic and dumb and the whole rape and women getting killed does kinda bother me with all of those 5 movies i mean Schwarzenegger and Stallone never seemed to face that kind of a problem with their movies. Overall Death Wish 2 is no masterpiece and it never intended to be one in the first place and except some dumb scenes with the daughter getting impaled or the policeman from the first film getting murdered (sequels do that often it seems) this was a perfectly action film that was enjoyable despite severe flaws with it's script and characters. (7.5/10)

The original "Death Wish" practically screamed sequel, and we get it here when Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) relocates to Los Angeles and hell follows with him. Sounds like the Book of Revelations, doesn't it? Chapter Six, Verse Eight to be exact.Well, there's little of redeeming social value here, but it's not as over the top as the series would get with the follow up to this one, "Death Wish 3". You just had to know that when five thugs rape the maid, beat up on Kersey and kidnap his daughter, it's not going to be a good day. For the bad guys that is. Kersey takes his one man wrecking crew job seriously, and proceeds to blow away everyone who took part in the initial violence. Laurence Fishburne appears as one of the bad guys in what could have been a career ending move but things fortunately worked out for him OK.Catching these films in the series out of order, I was surprised to see Jimmy Page's name attached to the credits list as the music composer for "Death Wish 3"; little did I know he got the nod for this one as well. I already used the 'Dazed and Confused' analogy in writing up my review for that picture, but in keeping with the spirit of things, it seemed to me that the page Bronson was taking out of the Led Zeppeling songbook this time would have been something like 'Your Time is Gonna Come'.

Michael Winner's follow-up to his cult vigilante classic offers more of the same, with less satisfying results, and reeks of a senseless, exploitational cash-in. Seemingly it's a film centred around one distasteful and graphic rape scene, using it as an excuse to set off Bronson on another round of shooting punks and youths. What irritated me most about this film was the sheer lack of imagination involved - scenes of Bronson going around simply shooting the thugs and bad guys with corny one-liners simply don't stand up against the mincing machine/mercury dumb-dumb bullet deaths that made THE EXTERMINATOR a minor classic of vigilante cinema.It may be a low budget film but the camera-work is fine, and some of the shoot-outs are staged in an exciting way. It's certainly a lot more polished-looking than THE EXTERMINATOR was. It's just a shame that the so-called "plot" is a mere retread of the original and offers up absolutely nothing of originality or much interest. All characters in this film are bland, cardboard cut-outs so it's hard to get worked up about anything that happens.Bronson here is particularly wooden, and often seems to be an automaton when he prowls the streets. He doesn't get upset about the death of his daughter, or even change his expression when she dies. Jill Ireland's role in the film is pointless. Vincent Gardenia is probably the best character, a likable detective who's trailing Bronson, but even he is wasted. The mindless thugs who kill Bronson's maid and daughter are just that, mindless thugs, there's nothing particularly cruel or evil about them. They're probably chiefly of interest today for the appearance of Laurence Fishburne in their ranks, an actor who has certainly gone on to bigger and better things.Although the film is heavily cut (by over three minutes) here in the UK, it still manages to be thoroughly unpleasant in the snippets of the rape scene that we do get to see - and for once, I'm with the censors on this. What irritates me most is that the eventual 'justice' that Bronson brings to the rapists doesn't even match the awfulness of the original crime, he just shoots them dead and that's it. As I mentioned, the shoot-outs are interestingly and fluidly staged but still become repetitive, although the film's running time does seem to fly by. There are no messages here and Winner's direction is flat. DEATH WISH II is a waste of time unless you're a fan of cold, pointless violence, and everything that a sequel shouldn't be.

After essentially being chased out of New York, "Paul Kersey" (Charles Bronson) has relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles in an effort to start life all over again. Living with him is his daughter, "Carol Kersey" (Robin Sherwood) who is gradually recovering from the trauma she experienced in New York which resulted in her father becoming a vigilante in the first place. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, a gang of young men break into his apartment and after severely beating Paul and killing the housemaid, "Rosario" (Silvano Gallardo) forcibly take Carol with them. Later on she is gang-raped and dies attempting to escape. This event results in Paul returning to his vigilante ways and his specific targets are those who participated in the death of his daughter. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that, other than the location and the introduction of a couple of new characters, this film mirrored the first movie to a very great extent. Even so, it was certainly watchable and for that reason I have rated it as slightly above average.