You mean to tell me throughout the whole film..he did not run into the three punks that actually killed his wife and raped his daughter?. I know, I know, perhaps they were just passing through and NOT from that neighborhood. I guess this was not your typical, unrealistic, revenge flick but was more true to life, hence it's success in the box office but i'm sure 90% of the viewers were looking forward to Bronson blowing Jeff Goldblum and company's brains out! Great film but the fact that he didn't kill them ruined it for me!
Probably the saddest part about the series and for the character of Paul Kersey himself. You would think that he would've eventually caught up with Jeff Goldblum and crew later in the film or even later in the series for that matter, but he never does. Not only that, but Kersey never knew who the 3 punks were. However, on the subject of realism...that's why I love the original. It wouldn't have been a surprise if the hero tracks the punks down immediately, kills them, and then moves on like all the other revenge films. Kersey never finds the attackers of his wife and daughter, but oddly...that's what made Death Wish stand out.
Kersey never knows that he doesn't run into them either. He killed one trio, but the officer said it could've been two or three guys (only we know it was three not two) and he killed a couple duos, so maybe he thinks he did get them.
I also didn't like that he didn't get to kill Goldblum and company. Pretty lame, I think. I wanted him to find out who raped and killed his wife, and then blow them away.
That's an understandable sentiment, however, the story became a situation where the Paul Kersey character had given up on the police, who admitted early on that they had only a chance of finding his wife's and daughter's attackers, implying NO chance. Kersey was no policeman himself either and so, with less experience in pin-pointing such criminals, he seems not to have considered that route, knowing it to be a probably fruitless, endless search to find them. Had he gone that way, the police would certainly have been able to find him earlier, since he would have had to use their resources to get started.
No, instead Kersey decided to be a faceless vigilante-of-revenge-on faceless criminals. Any of them would serve him as proxy for the revenge he sought and he seems to be reinforced in his crusade against faceless criminals each time he kills, feeling justified but not satiated. And so he keeps going, deliberately seeking traps in which he can feel justified in killing those whose own criminal habits draw them into his traps.
The only real statement we get from the film's writers/producers about why he is doing this is when Kersey addresses his son-in-law as they return to the city after visiting his now-catatonic daughter: “What about the old American social custom of self-defense?" He monologues. "If the police don’t defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves.... What have we become? What do you call people who, when they’re faced with a condition of fear, do nothing about it--they just run and hide?”
The producers leave the question unanswered in dialog, proceeding with their explanationS in the continued action of the story we see unfolding. Kersey continues his one-man crusade. Although warned by the police that he is being watched as a suspect, Kersey eventually gets seriously wounded by one of his intended victims, and nearly bleeding to death it leaves him to be caught by the police, who do not want to make a martyr of him, so the police force him to run from the largest city in the country. But the film's last scene shows that Kersey does not intend to hide, as he takes aim with his fingers in pistol pantomime at some roughnecks who have just harassed a woman in plain and public view in what was then the second largest city in the country.
So, rather than satisfying YOUR viewers' need for revenge on the particular perpetrators, the film's producers have twisted the story by another half, to preserve their demi-hero, so he can continue his vigilante crusade against the faceless, fear-inducing predators of civilized city dwellers. It is a way for those of us who feel we are victims of the faceless criminals to have some vicarious faceless revenge on all the faceless criminals in perpetuity.
I always thought it would have been funny if Jeff Goldblum played a detective in Death Wish 3 helping track Kersey, maybe a once young punk that straightened out and became a police officer working his way up, who's past catches up with him and he might begin to realize he and his 2 buddies were responsible for Kersey's wife's death and daughter's catatonia 10 years earlier. Far-fetched, but sounds great.
I agree that the son-in-law's reply was a COUNTERPOINT. However, it seems from what followed that it was placed there by the producers/writers for irony and was NOT an ANSWER to Kersey's question. The answer that Kersey was looking for and demonstrated was what followed in the ACTION of the film. No further comment from Kersey as the perpetrator of the action. That was their agenda. The only other dialog on the matter was from the police as they tried to diagnose the situation and predict what what happen next and in concocting policy of how to deal with the movement Kersey was inspiring. Oh, and the dialog, if you can call it that, of the screaming press, with the headlines, magazine covers and talking heads and the literal screaming of the newsboy on the corner by whom Kersey walked a few times.
Instead, Kersey proceeded on his LONE and silent vigilante campaign of vicarious revenge and what seemed to be what we would now term as pre-emptive action.
What do you mean "faceless criminals?" And what do you mean "criminal habits". Crime is not a habit like picking your nose. It's a way in which people earn their living.
I only just watched this film for the first time last night and agree that somehow avenging his wife's death was going to be part of the movie.
I think Kersey ran into one of them one night when he was out prowling the streets when two guys, discussing some lame film they had just seen, came up the steps, turned the corner and bumped into him. I could have sworn that the guy that bumps into Kersey was the guy that did the spray painting.
I was thinking that Kersey might have been able to find the spray paint guy (tagger?) through his tags but that didn't even come up as a possibility.
You've hit upon exactly the thing which makes this film GREAT as opposed to merely good! I think all the critics who've slated Death Wish as exploitative, knee jerk and facist have entirely misssed the point- of course it's POSSIBLE to read it that way, and indeed it's the only way to view the stupid and objectionable sequels, but i see it very differently.... As you say, the initial reaction of viewers is frustration that the 3 muggers who kill his wife and rape his daughter get away with it. So is it too much of a stretch to say that ultimately Kersey's revenge, whilst wholly understandable, is in fact futile? He'll never get even with his wifes murderers- who are portrayed as by far the nastiest group of thugs out of the many in this film, incidentally. And, as implied in the films closing sequence, precisely because of that he's condemned to spend the rest of his life moving from city to city in a never ending search for vengeance/justice/call it what you will! Surely a pro vigilante expoitation flick would have taken the easy, crowd pleasing way out and somehow contrived to have him face and defeat his family's actual attackers- as happened in the sequels, and every other cheap Death Wish rip-off? Also, remember Kersey's riposte to the pro-gun buisnessman Aimes, explaining calmly that the reason he was a conscientious objector in the war and refused to own a firearm was because "some fool mistook my father for a deer" whilst hunting and shot him dead.....can you imagine the character (albeit briefly) putting the other side and saying anything like that in, say, Death Wish 3?? No, to me Death Wish is a classic example of a cynical 70's crime pic- no easy answers, no happy endings, and pretty far from being uncritically pro-vigilante.
Not finding the original muggers is one of the things that most bothered me about this film. It's good, but I actually prefer the Cannon sequels to be honest.
I think the gang leader from 3 should've been one of the original muggers. I think that would've been interesting. Give Paul at least some closure.
If Paul ran into the scumbags and ended up killing them... I don't think it would've mattered anyway. Because unless he somehow found out who they really were, as far as he's concerned, justice has yet to be served.
Would have been immensely satisfying to see them get what they deserved, though.