Death Wish (2018) (dir. Eli Roth)

Eli Roth's remake of the 1974 "Death Wish" is the victim of it's bad timing and even worse direction. Unceremoniously finding itself wedged between the "Black Lives Matter" movement and the hotly argued gun control debate, here's a film that will anger both sides of the political spectrum, and simply bore those in-between.

Originally meant for release back in November, but shelved due to Las Vegas shootings, our modern re-telling comes only 17 days after yet another mass shooting in America with a military grade assault rifle, and feels just as unsympathetic to the hoards of people vying for more stringent legislature than your routined government response.

Based on the aforementioned Charles Manson staple, (which was directed by Michael Winner) that spawned four sequels and plenty more controversy - it's message of frontier retribution in a world of injustice may be updated to 2016 Chicago, yet is shamefully less interesting than it is deliberately provocative. The blame must be bestowed upon it's director Eli Roth and screenwriter Joe Carnahan then, whose inability in matching the undercurrent of social satire with any dramatic weight, and exaggerated genre thrills result in a bland and over-the-top gore fest straight from the annals of the NRA propaganda vault.

Adopting the same plot synopsis as the 1974 original, Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) is a mild-mannered trauma surgeon in Chicago, Illinois. His home life is a picture-perfect snapshot of suburban life: doting wife Lucy (Elisabeth Shue) and his daughter Jordan (Camilla Morrone), a soon-to-be college student that he’s immensely proud of. But when opportunist armed thugs break into their house when Paul is on-call at work demanding the contents of the safe and aggressively forcing themselves upon them - resulting in a tragic outcome, Paul decides to take retribution in the form of a vigilante assassin, targeting those citizens who have slipped through the cracks of the law - earning a celebrity status as "The Chicago Grim Reaper".

Winner's interpretation was notoriously predicated on the soaring crime rates in New York in the 1970's, and the ongoing police ineptitudes at stopping crime or even seeking out justice. Where Brian Garfield's novel - of which both of these films are based on -differed was in it's romanticization of violence; perpetuating a medieval ideology that "an eye for an eye" is more important than common decency. In the case of Roth's DEATH WISH, the political elements of the film are oddly brushed aside, as it's clear the HOSTEl director is more interested in relishing in the torture-porn mantra his previous works are famous for - whether it's nuts and bolts shoot-outs, or an cut-and-burn torture sequence - which illicit less than the odd wince and guffaw, that creating a debate about the right to self-arm.

Willis is horribly miscast, and his performance is dutifully unconvincing. His turn as a experienced trauma surgeon is haphazardly told - strangely reminding me of a similarly bizarre extra from General Hospital. While his characters ongoing wrestle with grief is obviously given way to righteous indignation, as he navigates the underbelly of the Chicago underworld armed with an illegally bought weapon, when the narrative asks him to produce an emotional response to his familial tragedy, which are supported by the films best attribute Vincent D'Onofrio (Frank Kersey) - Willis' dramatic range is reminiscent to finding your tires slashed than someone in the midst of a an actual crisis, making the bad dialogue and clichéd narration even more risible.

As Paul's cache dominates the headlines, Roth forces the misdeeds to become a public morality tale: intercutting radio interviews and televised news proceedings to create a societal hot-potato on the principles behind vigilante justice. And with these dramatic flourishes, the accomplished horror director attempts to create something interesting about the notion of celebrity and about a man who takes things into his own hands - but this of course gives way to a myriad of boring exposition scenes and even worse action sequences.

Luck comes the way of our anti-hero though, when he's given a chance to seek justice from those who attacked his family, as one of the attackers turns up ridden with bullets on his operation table. Yet Roth's drama then bows out with the usually forgettable revenge thriller tropes. Whether or not a new interpretation of Garfield's divisive novel is imperative in a day-and-age of gun-loving conservatives, is for far more politically savvy people to argue. Here, whoever - Roth's account of justice in the "American way" is shamefully outdated, and it's views on firearms and the right to protect are so transparently old-fashioned. Finding profundity in the subtleties would have been a greater accomplishment, instead of ramming gun-happy 2nd amendment advocates down your throat for 107 minutes, before inexplicably boring us to death with your nihilistic approach to human affliction. It's dramatic contrivances are amongst it's numerous narrative problems, and it's clear that even if there weren't a school-shooting seemingly perpetrated in America every other week - there is never a good time to watch this bilge.

Rating 1/5.