Action

Paul Kersey, the soft-spoken family man with the knack for wasting street scum, hoped that, after cleaning an entire neighbourhood in Death Wish 3 (1985), he would hang up his guns, and lead a peaceful life. Nevertheless, more than ever, chaos, panic, and disaster are rampant on the mean streets of Los Angeles, as the unscrupulous drug dealers, Ed Zacharias and Jack Romero, whose rival gangs supply 90% of the narcotics in Los Angeles, exploit the helpless, terrorising everyone with their brutal methods. But, their reign of terror is about to end violently when the innocent teenage daughter of Kersey’s girlfriend dies of an overdose. Now, once again, the guns, and, in particular, Paul’s stainless-steel Ruger Mini-14 GB-F semi-automatic rifle, have the final say. Who can stand in the way of an angry, terribly dangerous, and armed-to-the-teeth Paul Kersey?Read More »

PLOT:
The corruption in the Sung Dynasty of 11th century China is so rampant that it inspires a band of Oriental Robin Hoods – the Honorable 108. Mountain bandits who nevertheless live by a scrupulous code of conduct, the Honorable 108 pledge to end the repression of the brutal overlords.Read More »

The star-director team of Charles Bronson and Tom Gries (Breakheart Pass) combine their efforts again on Breakout. Bronson plays Nick Colton, a reckless pilot who heads to an unnamed South American country, in hopes of rescuing imprisoned Jay Wagner (Robert Duvall). Villain Harris Wagner (John Huston), who has framed Jay, has an unlimited supply of henchmen at his disposal, but they’re no match for the dauntless Colton. Jill Ireland, Bronson’s real-life wife, costars as Duvall’s missus.Read More »

A professional hit man is planning to retire, always a difficult move for one in such a profession. A young apprentice appears to be eager to learn all the skills of the trade – but is that all he wants?Read More »

Despite Lieutenant Frank Ochoa’s order to leave New York permanently in Death Wish (1974), Paul Kersey is back in the city to visit an old friend after taking down Nirvana’s gang of savage thugs in Death Wish II (1982). But, death seems to follow the grizzled executioner, and after a shocking discovery, Kersey cuts a deal with the Police Chief, Richard Shriker: kill as many creeps as he wants, provided that he keeps the police informed. This time, Paul means business, and as the sadistic gang of the unhinged sociopath, Manny Fraker, terrorises the tenants of a run-down tenement building, and the entire neighbourhood, Kersey’s brand-new .475 Wildey Magnum alone is not going to cut it. Can “The Vigilante” bring peace back to the once-quiet region?Read More »

Paul Kersey thought his days as a vigilante were long behind him. But when his daughter and housekeeper are savagely assaulted and murdered, Paul is forced to take the law back into his own hands, hitting the tough, gang-filled streets of Los Angeles and embarking on a violent quest for justice. Realizing he has a ruthless vigilante on his hands, Detective Frank Ochoa races to put an end to the building carnage.Read More »

Grant Nebel wrote:
Melancholic Screwball

Into the Night resembles a lot of other films of its time: the Los Angeles version of Scorsese’s After Hours or what Miracle Mile would have been if that thing (you know the thing I mean) hadn’t happened. Moving forward, it’s Collateral with one character gender-switched and actually more gunplay, but its most interesting cinematic relative is Eyes Wide Shut. Let’s call it a second cousin: both films are about a man’s two-night journey after he realizes his wife’s infidelity (imagined in Eyes, real here) and more importantly, both take place in a city that’s not quite real. Kubrick created his own hallucination of New York for his film, but director John Landis and writer Ron Koslow had the advantage of making Into the Night in L. A., a city that’s always already part fiction.Read More »

Open-minded architect Paul Kersey returns to New York City from vacationing with his wife, feeling on top of the world. At the office, his cynical coworker gives him the welcome-back with a warning on the rising crime rate. But Paul, a bleeding-heart liberal, thinks of crime as being caused by poverty. However his coworker’s ranting proves to be more than true when Paul’s wife is killed and his daughter is raped in his own apartment. The police have no reliable leads and his overly sensitive son-in-law only exacerbates Paul’s feeling of hopelessness. He is now facing the reality that the police can’t be everywhere at once. Out of sympathy his boss gives him an assignment in sunny Arizona where Paul gets a taste of the Old West ideals. He returns to New York with a compromised view on muggers…Read More »

Quote:
Franz (B. Linda), a former officer of the Security Service disbanded in 1990, after verification, joins the police together with his colleagues. Abandoned by his wife, the daughter of a former deputy minister, he became bitter and distanced himself even more from women and the state. Working as a cop, attempts to stop a gang of car thieves lead to a tragedy, his colleagues die. Franz turns to his former Security Service friend for help. Soon, it turns out that Olo (M. Kondrat) most likely works for the criminals. The friends find themselves on opposite sides of the barricade, Franz’s young mistress crosses the line too. A cult film by Władysław Pasikowski, which met the expectations of the Polish audience and made Bogusław Linda, an outstanding actor of the cinema of moral anxiety, an icon of Polish cinema of the transformation period. Read More »