Death Wish 4: The Crackdown

Description

The streets are filled with death and destruction. Ruthless drug traffickers prey upon the poor, the lonely, the helpless. L.A. is a city desperate for deliverance until now! Charles Bronson returns as Paul Kersey, the original urban vigilante and one-man demolition force in this pulse-pounding, take-no-prisoners thriller! Two rival drug gangs have a death-grip on L.A.'s battle-torn inner city. But their brutal reign of terror is about to come to a violent end. One man is out to avenge the cocaine-induced death of his girlfriend's teenage daughter. His name is Paul Kerseyand he's armed, dangerous and mad as hell!

Customer Reviews:

A step down from previous Death Wish movies, but still a good one.......2007-08-20

Death Wish 4 (1987.) The fourth film in the Death Wish series.

INTRODUCTION:
By 1987, everyone most likely thought the Death Wish series was done. Charles Bronson had starred in three controversial but still excellent films, and it's not likely anyone expected anything new from the series. But just the same, a fourth entry arrived in 1987.

OVERVIEW:
Death Wish 4 was released in 1987. The film stars Charles Bronson and co-stars numerous others.

BASIC PLOT:
Paul Kersey (Bronson) is back in Los Angeles, trying to get on with his life. Everything seems to be going fine. He has a wonderful woman who could be his future wife, and his future daughter-in-law thinks the world of him, and even helps out at his architecture firm. Unfortunately, this is Paul Kersey's life, so you know things won't stay smooth for long. His future daughter-in-law dies of a cocaine overdose, prompting his wife to go undercover and find out what she can about the growing drug trade. Meanwhile, a rich newspaper mogul who also holds a grudge against the drug trade recruits Kersey to hunt down and kill the high-ranking men in both major drug organizations.

FILM OPINIONS:
This is a good movie but definitely a step down from the classic "trilogy" that came earlier. The simple fact is, even in 1987, there were just too many "war on drugs" films out there already. But fortunately, this is still distinctly Death Wish. The plot is paper-thin, but let's be realistic - we don't watch these movies for their storylines, we watch them to see Charles Bronson wasting punks. And you do get plenty of that here. If you want to see the continuing Paul Kersey saga, give this one a viewing. It's no masterpiece, but it's still a solid entry in the series.

DVD:
The Death Wish films got screwed for their DVD releases. Not only are all the films cropped and fullscreen, but most of them feature scenes that have been EDITED. This is most noticable in the rape scenes in the first and second film. For the first two films, import the Region 4 DVD that combines the first two films. For 3 and 4, import the Region 2 European DVDs. Or if you can find it, get the import Vigilante Collection that has all five films in widescreen. Just be sure you have a multi-region player first!

OVERALL:
Overall I recommend this film, but only if you're already a fan of the series and want to see how things play out for Kersey. Watch it if you're a fan, but any Death Wish newbie should start at the beginning.

Good Fun.......2007-07-28

Plenty of people here have summarized what the film is about, so I won't. I'll try to add something original to the mix, so forgive me if I don't confine myself to describing the film's plot. The popularity of this film cannot be explained without a wider understanding of cultural conditions and sentiments at the time of its release. Death Wish was a bombshell, as it gave voice to how hundreds of thousands of people were feeling, sentiments people felt and may not have publicly expressed for fear of backlash from the PC movement. In a few sentences, the cultural circumstance referred to was a growing discontent with what was growingly considered to be misguided attempts to solve society's "problems." In the sixties the government gave itself the responsibility to "fix" many problems, from teenage pregnancy to poverty to drug use to discrimination to crime, with social "programs," judicial activism and new legislation. Ironically, ALL of these problems were already rapidly decreasing in the early sixties. Crime was HALF what it was in 1930, even if you don't control for the increase in the population!! Poverty was lessening each and every year. What happened after the social programs of the late sixties and the generation of the welfare state? Well, the crime rate literally exploded. So did teenage pregnancy. Poverty quadrupled. Another thing that happened was the rewriting of law to lessen the punishment of criminals to the result that even the criminals that were arrested and successfully prosecuted often ended right back out on the street in a matter of months to commit even more crimes. People were sick and tired of this crap. Some filmmakers new it, and tapped into this sentiment with wildly popular films like Death Wish, The Stone Killer, and Dirty Harry. An entire genre of "vendetta/revenge/let's take out the human garbage" films was born, and Charles Bronson, after Death Wish, was for a decade the most popular actor in the world. Bronson's presence is undeniable. The seventies threw up some wonderfully gritty films drenched in utter realism, and the Death Wish films are some of the greatest of all time. Death Wish 4 isn't the greatest in the series, but it's still better than most of the crap that passes for action films today.

excellent addition to the series.......2007-03-09

The Death Wish series is an interesting collection of films, featuring revenge ("Death Wish 2", "Death Wish 5") and vigilante ("Death Wish", "Death Wish 3", "Death Wish 4") tales and starring Charles Bronson as "The Vigilante" Paul Kersey. The first three films in the series were surreal, hyped-out urban fever dreams with the first two being believable and serious (and with DW3 beginning seriously and slowly turning into an all-out cartoon culminating in an all-out street war with chainguns, rocket launchers, Home Alone-esque booby traps, and entire buildings exploding like a war zone). The first three films featured Bronson fighting various thugs, rapists, muggers, and "creeps". In "Death Wish 4", he abandons the street war and starts dismantling white collar criminal drug empires.

"Death Wish 4" takes a different direction than the first three by amping up the plot and easing back on the sleazy feel that permeated through the original Michael Winner-directed trilogy. Once again Bronson is propelled to vigilante action when a loved one dies, but this time the circumstances are different. Instead of a direct rape and/or murder, it's drugs that are the killer this time, so instead of attacking lowlifes, Bronson sets to work against the drug kingpins ruling the trade in LA as a favor to Nathan White (in a performance that goes from distinguished and calm in the beginning to hilariously over-the-top in the finale....those who have seen this know what I mean). It shouldn't be spoiling anything to say that, more or less, Bronson accomplishes his goal in no time at all, but to his chagrin White is more than what he seems.... The directing of J. Lee Thompson (Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear) gets the job done and the musical score is excellent (some have complained that the excellent Jimmy Page score featured in "Death Wish 2" and "Death Wish 3" is missing, but it seems fitting as Page's score had a more discordant and twisted feel that meshed well with the films' atmospheres, whereas almost all of that scummy atmosphere is gone in "Death Wish 4").

This is an excellent 80s actioner and a definate improvement over "Death Wish 3". Bronson does what he does best and John P. Ryan gives a hilarious and memorable performance ("I warned you.....I'd kill her!!). Fans of Bronson and these types of movies should be pleased.

Deathwish Resurrected.......2007-01-28

After the classic original Deathwish, numbers 2 & 3 may have supplied the violence, but lacked the heart that made Paul Kersey an interesting character. Unexpectedly, in #4, Bronson brings back the heart and soul of this remarkably unmarketed series (c'mon, where's the Vigilante action figure with assorted Punks and Gangsters?). This episode reminds us of the baggage Kersey carries and truly portrays him as a man who is unconcerned about his own survival unless it prevents him from fulfilling his mission of death without mercy. This is what sets the Bronson character apart from other great action heroes: he is never confused or hesitant in his killing. He is the Messenger of Bad Karma. His targets are already damned, he just stamps their ticket on the way to Hell.
Not only is this second only to the original in quality, but it does a nice nod to an excellent earlier film of Bronson, The Mechanic. His "hits" involve interesting technique showing us that Kersey is no amateur; he's really gotten damn good at what he does. The battle at the oilfield looks like lost footage of The Mechanic, and is surreal as Bronson slowly approaches his kill to the spooky metallic sounds of oilfield pumpjacks. The ending presents a terrible philosophic conclusion: Evil has been soundly thrashed, but the collateral damage goes on and the world seems no better. Obviously, Bronson's work is never done.

Great Death Wish installment.......2006-12-01

Once again, this is a major improvement from DW3. Bronson is as great as ever and I really loved his performance here. The plot is okay, not oscar material, but acceptable. At least it has more to it than just shooting people.

Very good movie for Bronson fans.

Average customer rating:

Crackdown
Starring: Chris de Rose , Chard Hayward , Scott Valentine , Tyke Caravelli , and Seib Seibl
Director: John Garwood
Manufacturer: DVD Ltd
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305279209
Release Date: 1999-02-02

Description

Major Manolo Montalban has gone back to war. This time, however, the enemy is in his own home town--and deadlier than any army. Montalban has declared war on drugs, and he's going to unleash one hell of a crackdown that may blow the city apart! Chris DeRose, Seib Seibl, Tkye Caravelli, Cynthia Killion.

Average customer rating:

L.A. Crackdown
Starring: Pamela Dixon , Tricia Parks (II) , Kita Harrison , Jeffrey Olsen , and Robert D'Lorrio
Director: Joseph Merhi
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00004W4G5

DVD:

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