Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers
29,188
edits
Death Wish: Difference between revisions
added Multiple Works template
m (Dai-Guard moved page Death Wish (Film) to Death Wish over redirect: Remove TVT Namespaces from title) |
(added Multiple Works template) |
||
| (16 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{work|wppage=Death Wish (1974 film)}}
[[File:deathwish_2083.jpg|frame|He wants the filth off the streets. If the police can't do it, he will... his way.]]
{{Multiple Works Need Separate Pages}}
''Death Wish'' is a 1974 action-crime-drama film based on the 1972 novel by Brian Garfield (who also wrote ''[[Death Sentence]]''). The film was directed by Michael Winner and stars [[Charles Bronson]] (the actor, not [[Bronson|the prisoner]]).
Line 18:
----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Actionized Sequel]]: ''Death Wish 3'' and the actionizing goes even further with ''4'' and ''5''.
* [[Agony of the Feet]]: Paul puts a board full of nails on front of his bathroom window for burglars. It doesn't take long before one steps on it.
Line 26 ⟶ 25:
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Paul is a pacifist, but he learned to use guns during his younger years as a combat medic in the Korean War. And it shows.
* [[Big No]]: Freddie Flakes' last words before being blown up and burned to death by a remote controlled soccer ball, controlled by Paul in ''Death Wish V'':
{{quote|
'''Freddie''': "Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!" [Paul detonates the soccer ball]
* [[California Doubling]]: ''Death Wish 3'' was set in New York, but filmed in London.
* [[Cartwright Curse]]: One of the series' most notorious traits. See [[Disposable Woman]] entry below. About the only woman close to Kersey who DOESN'T end up dead is his girlfriend in the second film and even then, she leaves him after finding out that he's a vigilante.
* [[Concealment Equals Cover]]: Averted in ''2'' and ''3'', with fatal results for those who try it against Kersey.
Line 36:
* [[Every Car Is a Pinto]]: A car blows up in ''2'' after it falls off from a cliff. Justified because it was the car of a small-time [[Arms Dealer]].
** More ludicrous example happens in ''3'', when the car Kathryn is in slowly rolls down a hill, hits another car and they're both engulfed by huge explosions.
* [[Film of the Book]]
* [[Friend to All Children]]: Being a {{spoiler| former}} father, Paul has a soft spot for kids as shown in Death Wish 3 and 4. The former having him buy ice cream for one of the neighborhood kids while the latter being his relationship with Erica, the daughter of his girlfriend Karen. [[Papa Wolf|God help you if you happen to harm a kid or have been known to harm children while Paul is within an earshot of that info.]]
* [[Hand Cannon]]: Paul's friend "Wildey" (more specifically, the .475 Wildey Magnum) from ''3''. Currently the most powerful semiautomatic handgun in the world.
* [[Karma Houdini]]: The three muggers and rapists from the first film, who start Kersey's road toward vigilantism, are never caught by the cops or killed by Kersey.
* [[Man On Fire]]: Three people burn to death in ''3'' during the climactic urban war between the criminals and the locals.
Line 44 ⟶ 45:
* [[New York Subway]]: In the first film, two muggers try to rob Paul on the subway. [[Foregone Conclusion|They do not survive]].
* [[Obstructive Vigilantism]]: Used by Paul in the second movie, when the cops show up to his house after the break-in.
*[[Police Are Useless|Police Are Useless:]] The entire franchise runs on this as one of many motivations to why Paul Kersey resorts to Vigilantism. In the first movie, there's a more grounded realistic reason why this trope is in play. At the time, New York was one of the cities in the world that had the highest crime rates. This movie specifically mentions muggings and rapes alone happening to thousands of people, by different criminals. Which is why it was hard for them to search for the ones that attacked Carol and Joanna. As the sequels went on the police, [[Reasonable Authority Figure|save for a select few]], started to degrade in usefulness in an effort to make Paul's methods look more effective by comparison.
* [[Pop Star Composer]]: [[Led Zeppelin|Jimmy Page]] did the score for the second film.
* [[Pre-Mortem One-Liner]]:
{{quote|
'''Stomper:''' Yes I do.
'''Paul Kersey:''' Well, you're gonna meet him.
** And from ''4'':
{{quote|
'''Paul Kersey:''' Death.
* [[Rape
*[[Reasonable Authority Figure|Reasonable Authority Figure:]] While most police officer characters on the [[Police Are Useless|show are considered incompetent]] in the series, there is a select few, that do try to get the job done. [[Hero Antagonist|Ironically most of them do so, going after Kersey]] [[Lawful Good|for vigilantism.]]
** The first is Officer Joe Charles. He is one of the few cops, Kersey seems to trust more than the others. Since he's a beat cop, he can only tell Kersey the information he got from Carol and leads him to the detective on the case. Said detective, while sympathetic, somewhat qualifies, because he's honest in the chances of finding the people that attacked his wife and daughter. After Paul's vigilante antics make the news, while the cops begin to suspect him, Charles genuinely shows up and inquires how he's doing and how Carol is doing. Which doesn't seem like a ploy to get him to admit his vigilantism.
** Lieutenant Frank Ochoa in the first two movies. With the help of his team at the precinct, the detective is able to narrow down the list of suspects in the Vigilante case, based on personal vendettas with muggers. By the time he's able to figure out Kersey is responsible for the crimes, his higher ups don't want him arrested. Instead, they want him to scare him out of his crusade or at least get him to move out of New York. Unlike most examples where the crusader cop would protest it, Ochoa follows the orders. {{Spoiler| In the second movie, he was tasked to silence Kersey on the off chance the LAPD arrests him and he confesses to his New York Exile, which would implicate Ochoa and the City of New York. However, when he sees Kersey is about to be ambushed by the group of criminals that killed Carol, he instead sacrifices his life to save Kersey. Only asking in return for him to kill the rest of them.}}
** Police Chief Richard Shriker in the third movie. He seems like a [[Rabid Cop]] at first, even busting Kersey despite knowing he didn't kill Charlie. However he reveals to be a fan of his work and enlist his help in taking down a major gang in New York. Which basically amounts to letting Kersey loose in exchange for the occasional police tip. During the final gang fight, he backs Kersey up while the cops and locals deal with the rest of the warring gangs.
** The weirdest example, but still counts. Detective Phil Nozaki in the fourth movie. He at first seems like an honest cop. He's genuine friends with his partner, Sid Reiner and is the first to figure out that the rising drug war between Ed Zacharias and The Romero brothers, was the work of Paul Kersey. However it turns out he is a [[Dirty Cop]] working for Zacharias, but even then on both sides he's still reasonable. He informs Zacharias that the Romeros weren't responsible for his recent troubles, which Zacharias tried to tell the Romeros during the final war. On the other side, he doesn't want to kill Kersey despite Zacharias orders to do so. So he tries to bluff Kersey into giving up information on who he worked for. Kersey took no chances and killed him.
** Detective Sid Reiner. He seems like a jerk cop at first, snarking at the first witness to Kersey's return to vigilantism. However he's a competent cop regardless and backs his partner Phil Nozaki. Things take a bit of a turn when he finds out Kersey killed Phil. He didn't know that Phil was crooked, so as far as he was concerned, Kersey went too far by killing a cop. Not backing down when Kersey tried to leave to rescue Karen. Not believing Kersey when he explains Phil's corruption. When Kersey loses Karen and kills the fake Nathan White, he let's Kersey go. Seeing losing his girlfriend as punishment enough.
* [[Reality Ensues]]: One thing this movie series has, that rarely happens in action flicks is it shows how real the consequences of vigilantism is. At least once per movie, Paul suffers one or two wounds that require him to patch himself up. Averting the Invincible Hero cliche many action characters before and after this series. It also shows how quick the police respond when word of mysterious increasing deaths of criminals has gone around. Such as in the first movie, where they almost immediately figure out Paul's motive before finding out he was the vigilante.
* [[Recycled Soundtrack]]: Some music in ''The Crackdown'' was taken from ''[[Missing in Action]]'' and ''Invasion USA''.
* [[Retirony]]: In ''Death Wish 3''. [[Token Romance|As if her hooking up with Paul isn't bad enough]], by the time Kathryn Davis declares her intent to quit her job as a public defender and move to a new city for a fresh start, it's obvious she's doomed.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: When the first movie starts, Kersey is essentially a pacifist until his wife is murdered and his daughter raped into catatonia, then turns violent against criminals. While all five of the films have Kersey seeking vengeance, ''Death Wish
* [[Same Language Dub]]: Some of the extras in ''3'' were dubbed over due to their British accents.
* [[Sequel Escalation]]: The bodycount per film for the first four films rise as the series progress.
* [[Sock It to Them]]: In the first film Kersey gets $20 worth of rolled quarters, puts them into a sock, practices swinging the flail around in his apartment, and then carries it around during the day. Soon someone with a knife tries to mug him, and a single hit makes the other guy drop the knife and try to run away, go headfirst into a wall, and then stumble off.
* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Paul becomes one in ''The Crackdown''.
* [[Viewers are Morons]]: Third film's number was supposed to be roman like in the second film, but it was changed because it was believed that Americans don't understand roman numbering.
* [[Vigilante Man]]: ''Death Wish'' is probably the [[Trope Codifier]] for this character type in media.
* [[What Happened to
* [[Wretched Hive]]: New York.
Line 69 ⟶ 81:
[[Category:Death Wish]]
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Films Based on Novels]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
| |||