Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Instead of doing actual writing today I decided to procrastinate and view this 1980s Charles Bronson masterpiece.Here are my two cents...Bronson is a Denver journalist who find him self out for lunch and serial homicide one afternoon. It appears some whackjob lost his gauge on reality and unloaded on an entire Mormon family. Even killing the kids. It does not take a prophet to get the fact no one cares for this .Bronson befriends the Mormon family patriarch and a strange friendship starts. He first tells the man's father who then accuses his own brother. We then hop off to Glenwood Springs , Colorado where the local not so friendly sheriff points Bronson to the farm of the accused brother.After hitching a ride with one of the brothers many cousins , the accused brother accuses the brother who accused him. More back n forth than a washing machine in motion. Bronson doesn't buy it. The tanker truck that suddenly runs them off the road certainly makes the brothers doing it not wash. As Bronson digs deeper he finds the debutante of a very powerful businessman owns the tanker truck company.Back home in New Zion the brother has decided that when it comes to the violent murder of his grand children God can sit judgment out. After organizing his flock he heads to Colorado for a shootout with his brother. Bronsan warns the brother moments before a shootout begins and during the fire fight learns this piece of land has billions of gallons of water under it , that guess what some nearby water company has been dying to get their hands on , even with all the pieces he can't stop both brothers from killing one another .Afterwards , the tanker truck returns with its friends , and demolishes the vehicle Bronson Is leaving in. Back in Denver the chief of police is holding his first fundraiser via his old business partner Fox. After the death of a source and an earlier knife fight with the killer, Bronson comes face to face with the cutthroat again. After a brief struggle we get all the answers.Disclaimer : A Golan - Globas production. That's 80's film speak for B- Rate , but remember without these two you would never know who Chuck Norris is.I have to admit it was a good script no problem with it. The acting could be shaky at times and the direction clearly had a problem with achieving the psychological moods in scenes. There is enough here to pass a Sunday afternoon sometime but not much else.

Wifes and children of the Mormon Orville Beecham (Charles Dierkop) become victims of a slaughter in his own house . The police believes the massacre had a religious motive . Orville doesn't give any comment on the investigation and he is taken into protective custody . Tough 'Denver Tribune' crime reporter Garret Smith (Bronson , he was about sixty-six years of age when he appeared here) persuades him to help him in the case of the slaying of his family . As there is an extreme feud between different Mormon sects , one being led by Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey) and the other led by his brother Zenas Beecham (John Ireland) . Smith , helped by Jastra Watson (Trish Van Devere) , uncovers a strange conspiracy around old-rich real state . This light entertainment and standard Bronson movie is full of action , thrills , and disturbing scenes . Here Bronson rules in his usual stoic acting and displays efficiently his weapons , killing mercilessly nasties . The meaning and relevance of this movie's title is that it refers to a drawing featuring an avenging angel of death that is left at a crime scene at the beginning of the flick . The title also suggests that Bronson is a 'Messenger of Death', the word messenger also being a play on words with this, as his character is a reporter , a job which involves writing news articles , they being "messages" in a sense . In the film there is frantic action , thrilling car/trucks pursuits , shootouts , intrigue , little bit of violence and including a twisted as well as suspenseful finale . Based on a book and scripted by Paul Jarrico , as its source Rex Burns novel 'The Avenging Angel' was first published in 1983 , though the film has little in common with the novel it is based on . From the beginning until ending the action-packed and fast moving is continued and that's why the picture results to be entertaining . This is one of the last films (last movie was Kinjite) Charles Bronson made for Cannon Films and it represents the ninth and final of ten teamings between producer Pancho Kohner and star actor Bronson . Charles Bronson acting is wooden as being habitual in his roles as an investigator/executioner . Here he plays a reporter who carries out an investigation and finds out about economic motives for a massacre . This journalist evokes the crime writer character he played in St. Ives (1976) , the first movie he made with Thompson . The great spotlights of the film are the spectacular chases , car crashes between Bronson's car and the big juggernaut as well as the ending confrontation that's stimulating and moving . Nice and wide support cast , such as : Daniel Benzali , Marilyn Hasset , John Cedar , Penny Peyser , Tom Everett and Gene Davis who starred a heinous killer in ¨10 to midnight¨ by Thompson . Special mention for Laurence Luckinbill who gives an overacting with quite gesticulation . And the elders of this movie's religious groups are played by three stars of old Western movies : Charles Dierkop , Jeff Corey and John Ireland . It packs and evocative and adequate cinematography by Gideon Porath . Atmospheric soundtrack by Robert O. Ragland , including stirring choral score in the title and final credits composed in ¨Jerry Goldsmith's Omen¨ style . The fare was regularly directed by J. Lee Thompson , though he fell ill during the making of this film , the picture was then finished by the first and 2nd unit director : Robert C. Ortwin Jr. and George Van Noy . It's narrated understanding as well as hardly . This movie represented the eighth and penultimate of nine teaming of director 'J Lee Thompson' with star actor Charles Bronson . This Thompson movie was theatrically released between his pictures Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1986) and Kinjite (1989) , both of them starred by Bronson . Thompson previously had a nice track record in the English cinema from 1950 until 1961 , directing good Western (McKenna's gold , White Buffalo) and all king genres as Sci-Fi (Conquest and Battle of planet of apes), terror (reincarnation of Peter Proud , Eye of the devil), adventures (Flame over India , Kings of the sun , Taras Bulba , Tiger Bay) and Warlike ( Guns of Navarone, Von Braun , Chairman , The passage). His two biggest successes turned out to be ¨Guns of Navarone¨and ¨Cape Fear¨. Thereafter , the filmmaker's career subsided in a morass of slickly realized but middling films. He moved into the field of international spectaculars , at which point his filmmaking seemed to lose its individuality . J. Lee Thomson working from the 50s in England, finished his career making Chuck Norris (Firewalker) and Charles Bronson vehicles (Caboblanco , Evil that men do, Messenger of death, Death Wish 4 : Crackdown, Caboblanco, St Ives). Firewalker rating : Mediocre but passable , but it will appeal to Charles Bronson fans

Messenger of Death (1988) ** (out of 4) After three women and several children of a Mormon family are brutally murdered, reporter Garret Smith (Charles Bronson) begins to investigate and it seems the possible suspect might be between two rival members of that family. As the reporter gets deeper into his investigation his own life comes into jeopardy.MESSENGER OF DEATH is that Bronson movie where he kills nobody. With that said, it should come as no surprise that this film was the least popular of his Cannon movies at both the box office and the video rental market. If you ask die-hard Bronson fans what their least favorite Cannon film is more than likely they're going to name this if they've even seen it. MESSENGER OF DEATH doesn't completely work but it's still a mildly entertaining mystery that at least gives us a chance to see Bronson in a different type of role.J. Lee Thompson does a pretty good job in his directing duties and especially during the opening sequence where a mystery man enters a house and murders several people. The editing of this sequence is very well-done and the director handles it quite well. I'd argue that we're also given a couple fun action scenes including Bronson in a jeep going up against a couple semis trying to run him off the road. As far as the legend actor goes, for the most part he's actually pretty good here. He's certainly believable as a reporter and it's nice seeing him in this type of role. The supporting cast is also good in their parts and you'll also see some familiar faces including Gene Davis (10 TO MIDNIGHT), Tom Everett and Kimberly Beck (FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER).So, where does MESSENGER OF DEATH go wrong? For starters, the budget was extremely low so I'm sure many interesting scenes were never filmed. Another problem is that its main story just isn't all that interesting. The mystery aspect could have been played up a lot better but too often the film falls back to a formula action picture where we see Bronson whooping up on people. These action scenes just don't sit too well with an otherwise talky picture. MESSENGER OF DEATH isn't your typical Bronson movie but it's certainly not the worst of his career.

Messenger of Death gives us a fast-paced and very efficient directed action movie (Thompson cuts the crap and always is completely to the point) with Bronson in quite a different sort of role (as a matter of fact, he kills nobody in the movie even acts as peace-keeper in some way) playing a journalist from Denver. One wonders if Cannon were only interested in getting the video rented when they came up with this title, especially in the context of the poster. People who think that Bronson himself is the Messenger will be disappointed, people interested in a decent story will pass this on for all the wrong reasons. The music score is great, the plot-twist okay and the scenery makes for something completely different after seeing Charlie death-wishing in the Big City gutters. And before I forget : Bronson's side-kick is played by the beautiful and great actress Trish van Devere. I only remember her from a Columbo episode long, long ago. Wasn't that 'Make me a perfect Murder ?'