MovieChat Forums > 10 to Midnight (1983) Discussion > Isn't this essentially Death Wish 2.5?

Isn't this essentially Death Wish 2.5?


I saw this once in the 80s, I remember it as essentially being another Death Wish movie with a twist or two.

reply

More or less, yeah. Kinda like Clint Eastwood did a string of films that were basically 'Dirty Harry Lite' during the 80s...

------

Wait a minute... who am I here?

reply

I dont see any resemblance to DEATHWISH anywhere in this film. Yes, it has Charles Bronson in it, but if that makes it a DEATHWISH movie then SOMEWHERE IN TIME is a SUPERMAN movie.
"I dont remember any of it. Did I see it?"

reply

The similarity is of course Brosnson's character by-passing the "failed" justice system and taking matters into his own hands. He realises Warren Stacy will go free on an insanity plea and tampers with the evidence to prevent it happening, and when that doesn't work - bang!

reply

The similarity is of course Brosnson's character by-passing the "failed" justice system and taking matters into his own hands. He realises Warren Stacy will go free on an insanity plea and tampers with the evidence to prevent it happening, and when that doesn't work - bang!
.

If I recall, at the end the psycho says something like " IM MENTALLY ILL, YOU HAVE TO TAKE ME TO A PSYCHIATRIC WARD." and Bronson says something like " TO HELL I WILL" and shoots him dead. So technically that makes it taking the law into his own hands. But to say that makes this a DEATHWISH, (guy running around killing bad guys cus the law has failed him) type movie is a stretch.

" Pffft, my suspension of disbelief has higher standards than that"

reply

Yeah there is really NO similarities to Death Wish! He took the law into his own hands? He was the law lol Kersey went around killing random muggers in the city for revenge for the death of his wife and rape of his daughter, he went out looking for trouble and killed them.

Leo is a COP who is trying to stop a murderer from killing people especially when the killer comes for his daughter. ::SPOILERS:::, he plants evidence and stops the guy at the end by shooting him. ::END SPOILERS::

That is pretty much like saying Gran Torino is the same as Dirty Harry because Clint Eastwood beats someone up and takes the law into his own hands. I mean...it's really not the same at all. Just because Charles Bronson is in it and shoots someone with a GUN doesn't make it Death Wish. There was no vigilantism going on in this film.

reply

It's a cross between DIRTY HARRY (with Bronson's Leo Kessler taking things a LOT further in bending the rules than Harry did) and a slasher film (really taking in the bucks at the time).

reply