Death Wish’ L

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 2018

Volume 164, No. 48 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 163 years

texture to the film by capturing the city’s flavor. Perhaps because of the recent death of Chicago Alt-right fantasy Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer, a scene in which a wounded Chicago cop bleeds out while he and his part - REBECCA ner are stuck in a traffic jam par - ticularly irked me. A cordon of ‘Death Wish’ L. F ORD squad cars would have cleared the way by blocking off every in - tersection leading to the hospital Rebecca L. Ford is counsel at Scharf in the city I know. Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates My mind was free to drift to too far for NRA her practice on complex litigation, such discrepancies (the list is compliance, board governance and long) because the movie offered specialized employment issues. She is so little by way of plot or charac - Release delayed in wake of Las Vegas mass the former executive vice president for ter development to fasten my at - litigation and intellectual property at tention. shooting; film dropped right after Parkland MGM. She can be reached at The original Bronson “Death [email protected]. Wish,” the ultimate revenge fan - tasy of its time, was unabashedly omebody’s got to do it. PhD. wife (Elisabeth Shue). His watching instructional YouTube racial in depicting Kersey’s tar - That’s the takeaway deferential deadbeat brother videos and practicing on targets gets (even though the assailants from “Death Wish,” Frank (Vincent D’Onofrio), who in the basement bunker. Soon he of his wife and daughter were (my former employer) hints at anger issues in Kersey’s is ready to plunge, fully loaded, white and he never found them). MGM’s alt-right remake past, can be a tough guy when into the urban Chicago night. Roth tries to even things out Sof the 1974 Charles Bronson life requires it. Frank jokes about Let the gore begin. by making sure Kersey, dubbed “Mitty-with-a-Magnum” vigilante being a mooch although, on some After the Boston Marathon “the Grim Reaper” by talk radio classic. level, his brother won’t let him bombing, Mark Wahlberg, a hosts, avenges crimes against This human-prey shootout escape this assigned role. Boston native, starred in a film black victims. He also scales way was originally scheduled for re - The family’s idyll is shattered about the tragedy called “Patri - back on what was an extended lease during the Thanksgiving when a parking valet passes off ots Day.” rape scene in the original (fea - weekend, following the Oct. 1 Las their home address to a ring of The people of Boston hated turing a young Jeff Goldblum as Vegas country music concert robbers. Bad guys break into the the movie. They were granularly the offending criminal). Roth massacre. house while Kersey is in surgery. familiar with the details of the in - rightly assumes that today’s au - The film’s debut was delayed He learns of his wife and daugh - cident, down to the names and diences have raised the bar on until March 2 — 16 days after the ter’s brutalization as they are families of those who lost life and accepting racism and sexual as - Feb. 14 Parkland, Fla., school rolled into his emergency room. limb or committed acts of kind - sault as entertainment since shooting. Hardly an improve - The good doctor goes into a ness and bravery. It was irritat - 1974. Even so, he badly miscalcu - ment. funk. He can’t stand to be in the ing to watch a Hollywood version lates our bloodlust. One can argue that the best house anymore and battens of the event that seemed so dif - Americans are currently deep time to release a pro-gun movie down in a bunker-like garage. ferent from their on-the-ground into a civic conversation about is when public debate over gun He visits a shrink and rides the L experience. the ownership of guns, use of restraints is at a crest. But even deadly force and ubiquity of the NRA does not promote school shootings. Except for (though it may defend) self-depu - One can argue that the best time to Kersey’s visit to a gun shop, Roth tized street executions. release a pro-gun movie is when public doesn’t even try to update the Now backpedaling, the movie’s movie’s argument to resonate director Eli Roth says his inten - debate over gun restraints is at a crest. with 21st century concerns. tion with “Death Wish” was to It’s not fair to criticize a movie make a “family” movie. If that is incessantly to pass his days. The “Death Wish” may similarly for what it isn’t trying to be. But the case, then my advice to any - overwhelmed police detectives chafe Chicagoans in the way it Roth intends “Death Wish” as a one invited to join Roth for a assigned to the case (Dean Nor - depicts the city. One has to as - contemporary revisioning of the “family” occasion is to run like ris and Kimberly Elise), deferen - sume that Chicago was chosen as Bronson original (and its four hell — get out. tial and ineffective as his brother, the setting of the movie because sequels). In Roth’s Chicago-based re - are no help. its gun violence has been nation - It fails because it is a series of make, Dr. Paul Kersey (Bruce When Kersey filches a gun for - ally sensationalized. assassinations without conse - Willis) is a trauma surgeon, ap - saken by a gang member brought Instead of updating the movie quences — an arcade game — parently based at Rush. He lives in as a trauma patient, every - to address contemporary issues, without the connective tissue of a pastoral suburban life in thing changes. Forgetting his “Death Wish” lazily retrofits the good storytelling. Evanston with his beautiful oath to first do no harm, Kersey problems of a yesteryear New Roth’s phone is probably ring - daughter (Camila Morrone), who embarks on an autodidactic York onto our big shoulders. ing right now — it’s 1974 calling is on her way to college, and his course of firearms training, It doesn’t even try to add to get its film back.