You’re probably thinking nobody asked for this movie to be remade or some of you may not even know about the original movie or even know who Charles Bronson is. The original Death Wish had a normal guy whose wife is murdered by some street uglies. He dons a hoodie and goes off to kills some muggers. By the looks of this trailer, it’s the same story.
Now the road back to the big screen has been a rough one and probably deserves its own article but we can summarize here, baby. At one point Sylvester Stallone was set to star but on a Q&A on the Ain’t It Cool News website he asked the fans whether or not he should star in it, of course the fans told him no and soon after, he backed out of the movie citing “creative differences” (wish they would just tell the real reason why they quit, keep it real son). After that, director Joe Carnahan came on board to write and direct with stars Liam Neeson and Frank Grillo in mind for key roles (wish that had been made because The Grey is one of the best movies of all time, IMO) but the studio balked at his casting decisions and kept pushing Bruce Willis onto Carnahan. Carnahan being very outspoken basically said FUCK NO and even wrote and published an email to the studio heads saying he would not work with an “arrogant, lazy, aging action star” and the studio head was a “gutless turd”.
Tough words. What do you expect from the guy who wrote and directed Smokin’ Aces, kiddies?
After that, a couple of directors came and went for the project and with other actors as well, most notably Benicio Del Toro (who would’ve been great too). There was one director who stuck with it and as you can tell from the trailer it’s Eli Roth. Roth hasn’t really done this type of movie so it’ll be interesting to see what he can do in this genre.
Now as far as this trailer goes, it seems like Bruce Willis is having some fun with it. Willis has been stuck doing DTV movies lately and it’s a real shame because he can still carry huge movies. He’s still got that smartass smirk that worked for him in the Die Hard series, but being difficult to work with has burned some bridges with the big guys. The violence in this seems like there are no punches being pulled and that’s expected from Eli Roth who knows his way around it (he had someone’s dick cut off in Hostel 2).
This definitely won’t win Oscars nor will it be on anyone’s Top 10 lists of the year but it might be a cool little movie to enjoy. So come November let’s see what Bruce Willis can do.
So, smile – ya fuck.
Catch Mando outside (how bout that) on Twitter at @manbat33 when he’s not co-hosting the @TalentedSlacker podcast!