Partly because he keeps bouncing from New York to L.A. and back and because crooked cops keep covering up for him and/or secretly using him to fight crime.
In the first one Detective Ochoa makes a secret deal with Kersey at the end that if he leaves New York he won't be prosecuted or pursued.
Second one he moves to L.A. and after the inevitable scumbag killing spree the L.A. police suspect him and call New York for help. Ochoa flies out to try to make sure the L.A. police don't find out he let Kersey go back in New York. Then Ochoa is killed and the L.A. police's trail on Kersey goes cold.
Third one he goes back to New York and Detective Shriker recognizes him and blackmails him into killing street thugs and tipping off the cops so they can get credit. After the final shootout Detective Shriker gives Kersey a head start to escape.
Fourth one he jets back to L.A. and only two cops really suspect him or care about who's doing the inevitable vigilante killings. One of them, Nozaki, is a dirty cop working for a drug dealer and Kersey kills him. The other cop, Reiner, threatens to shoot him at the end but Kersey walks away and Reiner doesn't fire.
In the fifth one he goes back to New York and bizarrely is revealed to be in the Witness Protection Program. First the cops warn him not to do any more vigilante stuff, but then most of the cops turn out to be in cahoots with Evil Mobster Villain #1 and in the end the only straight cop decides to team up with Kersey against the mob and he walks away again.
You are strong with the DW knowledge. I thought the second one he moved to Chicago in between NY and LA?
shareHahaha, not laughing at you, just laughing because I don't remember writing that and it must have been after I had seen all of the Death Wish movies in a row and it was fresh in mind.
You are right - he moved to Chicago at the end of Death Wish/beginning of Death Wish II. But he's only in Chicago long enough to run into a friend who offers him a job in Los Angeles. So he doesn't actually commit any vigilante acts in Chicago or have any close female relatives/wives/girlfriends raped and murdered there. All that starts in L.A. where his daughter Carol, still catatonic, has been transferred.
Jersey for president
share50 Kills? That's a pretty low estimate. I'd say he killed 50 in Death Wish 3 alone. Mainly it seems the cops in at least the first 3 movies allowed him to kill. In the last 2 he's just a killing machine and the cops don't really even enter the discussion. It's pretty ridiculous that his only way of evading arrest is constantly moving between the same 2 cities over and over again. It's a minor miracle that there are 5 movies in this series. they're basically the same movie with a higher body count. This is the Saw of vigilantly movies.
shareActually his kill total in DW3 was 83.
His total for all 5 films is 171.
Which means his total for DW3 is almost as high as the other 4 films combined.
Save us...
And not all the prayers in the world could save us.
Actually his kill total in DW3 was 83.
His total for all 5 films is 171.
Which means his total for DW3 is almost as high as the other 4 films combined.
Well, as I recall in the first movie they had wanted to arrest Kersey after he became a suspect, but the crime rate had started to drop and the people were starting to see the vigilante as hero, so they feared they would not be able to convict him and the people would turn on the police. In the other films the primary police character either believed in what he does or was confronted with deciding between the law and justice.
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i had just seen all the previous turkey sequels to the great original 1974 movie. i felt like fast forwarding this...
when she was out of sight, she was out of mind,
and you came back around, to haunt my life,
a distant voice echo in my home,
and it'll stay within the shadows of the walls,
youll be in my mind, day and night,
until she comes back around for a while.
But isn't he mostly killing BAD people and often in self defense, which is considered, or at least, SHOULD be considered legal and moral, no?
shareIt remains one of the biggest movie plot holes of all time
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