Where to watch Death Wish: The Face of Death
1 1/2 Stars
Under a new identity, Paul Kersey returns to New York City, seven long years after the events of Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), to attend the glamorous fashion show of his fiancée, Olivia Regent. However, Olivia’s criminal former husband, Tommy O’Shea, has other plans in store for her, and after a deadly confrontation, Paul finds himself back to square one. Now, once more, with the police unable, or unwilling, to get to the bottom of this bloody case, it is up to Kersey, the grizzled messenger of death, and his snub-nosed, .357 Magnum Smith and Wesson Model 66 revolver, to right a wrong, and see to it that justice is served. Is there an escape from Kersey, and the face of death?
Whatever bit of inspiration that started the Death Wish is absent from the threadbare fifth installment, again starring the action icon Charles Bronson. Part V comes seven years after the last sequel, and time hasn’t been kind to the series. In the time between sequels, Bronson aged considerably, Cannon Films went bankrupt, and even A-list action heroes like Stallone and Schwarzenegger had misfired. So when Death Wish V hit theater screens in 1994, the reaction was a collective shrug from audiences and critics.
Death Wish V is, as expected, a violent revenge fantasy, but it lacks the over-the-top hilarity of Parts 3 & 4 and wastes another good performance from Michael Parks, who plays the film’s main baddie. Bronson, swollen and silver-haired, looks bored as he walks the shoot-em-up scenes yet still manages to make for a convincing screen hero. The film’s ridiculous story gives Bronson a love interest solely for her to be disfigured and abused so Charlie can exact retribution against a gang of ethnically ambiguous East Coast mobsters. Producer Menahem Golan’s final film, Death Wish V, brings an inglorious end to a shaky franchise and legacy.
Directed by: Allan A. Goldstein
Written by: Brian Garfield, Michael Colleary, Allan A. Goldstein
Starring: Charles Bronson, Lesley-Anne Down, Michael Parks