Death Wish

Bruce Willis sleepwalks through this listless remake of the Charles Bronson vigilante movie that made a bunch of dollars back in 1974, the year before Jaws was released. (I measure most things in the ’70s by the year Jaws was released. It’s a thing.) Remaking the film with Eli Roth at the helm and Willis in the Bronson role actually seemed like potential nasty fun. Sadly, Willis is phoning it in here, and too many horribly acted scenes reveal that Willis and Roth probably weren’t gelling as an actor/director combo. Willis often seems tone deaf in some of the movie’s more dramatic scenes, and just plain bored for the remainder. When Willis gives a shit about the movie he’s making, it shows. When he doesn’t care, and that seems quite often in many of his recent projects, he’s zombie-like. The original Death Wish (1974) is a hard watch these days. Apart from its racist depictions of criminals and extremely dated Herbie Hancock soundtrack, it’s also poorly acted by Bronson. It is, however, worth seeing for cameos by Christopher Guest as a police officer and, most horrifically, Jeff Goldblum as Freak No. 1. This time out, Paul Kersey (Willis) is a doctor set on revenge after his wife is killed and daughter winds up in a coma. Unlike the original, Kersey doesn’t just go after random criminals, but conducts a vendetta on the people who attacked his family. It all adds up to nothing.