i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Awesome Movie

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

You don't get a more typical police film than THE STONE KILLER, but nonetheless I found myself really enjoying this early Charles Bronson outing – and it may well be one of his most solid efforts. It's equally as enjoyable as the later Winner/Bronson collaboration DEATH WISH, and infinitely more entertaining than the ultra-slow CHATO'S LAND. The key to this film's success is the script, set soundly in the early, racist '70s and providing plenty of meat and pithy one-liners amid the usual mayhem.The plot, about Bronson's cop becoming involved in a feud between two mafia families, is nothing new. The execution is fairly routine, but every aspect of the film screams hard-ass, and I was never disappointed. Bronson, who might well be the titular character for all the expressions he cracks, is excellent, and watching him partake in shoot-outs, car chases, or just beating the hell out of a suspect in custody is a lot of fun.He's got a range of enemies here, from slimy street hustlers (Paul Koslo has a memorable turn) to vengeful, ageing mob bosses (Martin Balsam, although the two never actually meet). There's a snappy car chase about halfway too, lots of scenes of our hero taking out enemies from on high with a single shot, bodies that fall several stories before hiding the tarmac (no cutting away here, oh no) and an exciting set-piece climax in which a kill squad set about erasing a crime family from the pages of history. Winner's direction is a lot more focused than usual in his career, and the streets are alive with bullets, bad suits, and bloodshed. A tough as nails movie.

Good old stone faced Charlie Bronson. Man he's featured in some great movies, The Great Escape, Once Upon A Time In The West (probably his best), The Dirty Dozen, The Mechanic, Mr Majestyk and Death Wish (only the first one, none of the sequels). This, however, wasn't one of them.It's a shame because I was looking forward to this as I like CB's work but this seemed to be akin to a badly made Starsky & Hutch episode. And I love S&H! I have all the seasons on DVD even the awful season 4! The hackneyed plot, clichéd Mafioso villains (one even attempted to pull off a Brando style Godfather accent), cringeworthy dialogue and poorly made action sequences were all major Cons. Often badly made movies with some of these flaws are actually damn fun to watch and partly for said reasons. They have charm and character despite limited production values. Not this time.I couldn't think of any Pro's, even Bronson let me down. He seemed flat and sleepwalked his way through the movie. That didn't stop him making maybe the best pistol shot I've ever seen on screen. From a fairly fast moving helicopter cresting a rise Bronson popped a bad guy below with his trusty .38! An epic feat of marksmanship so unerring that the other hood flung his hands skyward and surrendered immediately....probably in shock and awe.Winner managed to squeeze in a pointless car chase in which Bronson managed to needlessly destroy numerous shops/establishments/stalls in pursuit of his quarry (the guy looked like Nik Kershaw or Lamahl with that hairdo) before roadkilling him GTA style when he probably could have taken him alive and pumped him for info.During said car chase he also managed to bump into a parked car which prompted a semi naked couple to pop up in shock from the back seat. Ahh a 70's movie staple for sure. I've no clue why Winner threw that in there.I can't bring myself to write anymore on this atrocity.1/10 purely for that pistol shot.I'm off to watch The Mechanic.....and not the Statham remake.

If you like "Charles Bronson movies" you'll like this Charles Bronson movie. We find him here, with his bandido mustache, in the rare role of a tough rogue cop who busts up the syndicate. The film opens with a shooting contest in New York between Bronson and a Puerto Rican kid who "wanted to be a comic book hero." One of the two winds up dead. Cut to the obligatory scene in which Bronson places his shield and his piece on the desk of his superiors.Yes, he's fired in New York, but he's welcomed by the LAPD. Working with a half-competent redneck partner, Lieutenant Bronson uncovers a plot by an old Mafia leader to wipe out the heads of all the other New York families because of a massive insult that took place forty-two years ago. The instrument of Martin Balsam's revenge will be the trained warriors who have returned deranged from their experiences in Vietnam. They, not Bronson, are the eponymous stone killers. Bronson is just an ordinary killer.Lots of familiar faces in the cast but they fail to lift it above the average "Charles Bronson movie." The location switches from coast to coast but that doesn't make any difference either. It's all derivative.When Bronson investigates a suspicious hippy girl -- this is 1972 -- we may recognize the location in which Paul Newman confronted Strother Martin in "Harper." The same gaggle of vegetarian goons are present, dressed like clowns, but this time the leader of the group goes into a rather interesting lecture on how "the blood of the cow and the animal fat clog up yer celebral arteries," and he delivers this encomium to carrots in what sounds like a Scandinavian accent.I don't know what the novel was like but it's been turned into a pulp movie full of shoot outs, cars chasing motorcycles on city streets, cars chasing cars in roiling clouds of dust across the desert floor, cars chasing cars in an underground parking garage -- and foot chases, in which man chases man in varying milieus. The environment I liked best was the mansion in the Mojave Desert, the house with the mastodon ribs as part of the decor.The musical score toggles between two modalities. There are the irritating metallic electronic guitars, which you can hear playing the main theme behind the opening credits. Then there is the suspense/action theme that is shamelessly ripped off from the still-quivering flank of "Bullet", including the ostinato that begins when Lieutenant Bullet snaps on his seat belt before the big chase.There's not much to be said about the acting. Martin Balsam handles the few lines of Italian well, considering that he's not a paisan. To make the story complete, somewhere along the line some fox should have lost her clothes and thrown herself at Bronson so that he could turn her away with a superior remark.

***SPOILER*** Charles Bronson as transplanted to L.A NYPD detective Lou Torry gets the lowdown from burnt out and drug addicted ex hit-man Armitrage, Eddie Firestone,that a big hit is to take place back in New York City on April 10, 1973. Returning Armitrage to NYC to face drug charges he's killed in a drive-by shooting just as he stepped off the plane returning him in the presence of Det.Torry! Torry who didn't for once believe a thing that Armitrage told him now feels that there's something in his far out and off the wall story. And is now determined to do everything he can, even brake the law, to stop the impending bloodbath from happening!It's old time Mafia Don Al Vescari, Martin Balsam, who's behind this massive hit job in that he's been planning it for over 40 years. It was on April 10,1931 or really in real history September 10, 1931, the years must have clouded Vescari's memory, that over 40 of his fellow Sicilian Mafia cohorts were massacred by the Luciano/Lanskey mob. That was to clear the way for a major restructure, in accepting Jews Irish and non Sicilians, into the mob as full time blood members. Like back in 1931 when Luciano used non Italians, the Jewish members of Lanskey's Murder inc, who couldn't be traced to the killings Vescari plans to use faceless and traceless ex-Vietnam vets, many with both mental and drug problems, to do his dirty work for him!The movie slowly builds up to its blood soaked conclusion as Let. Torry despite all the evidence,like in the newspapers books and even movies and TV specials, available to him in the history of the Mafia doesn't get it, the significance of the April 10 date in Mafia history, until the film is almost over. By then it's already too late with all the mob non Sicilian chieftains are by then assembled at a midtown Manhattan hotel where their killers, the ex Vietnam GI's, lead by super patriot Lawrence, Stuart Margolis, are waiting to ambush them.***SPOILERS** Typicel Bronson action flick with Bronson as Det. Torry saving the day but not the mob higher up whom Lawrence & co. end up doing in before they themselves are iced by Torry and members of the NYPD as well as Government SWAT teams and a company of NY National Guard. Det. Torry still couldn't really get the job done by him not being able to stop the massacre but with all those killed being criminals anyway no one watching the movie seemed to really care. In the end it was non other then the man who engineered this whole sale slaughter Don Vescari, in him feeling guilty about what he did, who went to confession to have his soul cleansed of the some dozen or so murders that he was responsible for.