‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

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Yeah.

We decided to make this big ass 70s month.

Big 70s movies.

I have no plan other than we did Star Wars and we bought a lot of Goodwill.

There's a lot of lobbying going on behind the scenes.

For the big ass 70s month.

Yeah.

And for which movies we do, yeah.

I feel like we're in one for us like century now after we did Star Wars.

So much leeway.

So, let's do death wish with Charles Bronson.

That's next.

Was it worth it?

Call him a mad vigilante,

call him a hero.

Either way, he's always on target.

We want you to get out of New York

permanently.

Never make a death wish

because a death wish always comes true

and you get to love it.

All right, CR.

This is a podcast about Death Wish with Charles Bronson and Vigilante movies and Charles Bronson himself.

And I think all of them tie together.

I think this is such an interesting movie.

I don't know if it's aged that well.

It has a really awful scene in it.

Yes.

This movie's also 51 years old.

Do you want to start Bronson or Vigilantes?

I want to start Vigilantes, I think, and the idea of like these

normal everyday businessmen becoming Batman in New York City usually

and going out and like handing out justice on their own terms, which then you have to read into like the audience reaction to the movies at that time.

Like, why were these movies popular?

Well, and that's why we're doing the pod, because so you have this cop vigilante era, Dirty Harry, 1971, Walking Tall, you big Buford pusser guy.

For sure.

Yeah.

Three of those.

And that was Dirty Harry was, he's a San Francisco cop.

Trying to find a serial killer.

He's making his own rules.

Yeah.

That was, I think, the first.

He's making his own rules.

Watch out.

Not a lot of movies about cops who follow the rules.

No, this one is really

set the mark, though, for don't follow the rules.

Yeah.

Walking tall, sheriff trying to save his town, and he decides to bend some rules.

And then Magnum Forest was another one with Quint, same, same type of thing.

But nobody had really put all of it together with normal people until Deathwish.

Where it's like, what happens?

This guy's an architect.

His wife and daughter are brutally assaulted.

His wife dies and he just kind of loses it.

Yeah.

And this leads to, they're still making these.

I mean, I made a list.

The Exterminator with Robert Ginty in 1980.

Remember that one?

Yeah.

Because I didn't, because I was.

I don't know if I've ever seen it.

Never saw it.

Fighting Back with Tom Scarett in 1982.

I saw it in the theater.

Yeah.

I remember that.

And then he went on to Top Gun.

Deathwish 2 in 1982.

He moves to L.A.

Vigilante, Robert Forster and Fred Williamson, your guy?

I don't know if I've ever seen that.

Yeah, I didn't even know it existed.

Deathwish 345, Falling Down, Michael Douglas, 93.

The Substitute, our guy, Tom Barrager, 96.

The Brave One, Jodie Foster said, Let me get in on this.

Yeah, this is bad.

That's basically a variation on this.

Gran Torino, 2008.

And now it just keeps, it's going and going and going.

Why do we like these?

And then they remade it with Bruce Willis.

They remade Deathwish later in life.

Do we acknowledge that one?

I'm just saying it happened.

They're still continuing to do it.

Look, the

idea of

a man whose family has been taken from him and then he goes out to, you know, dole out revenge is like a pretty durable, it goes back to Westerns.

It goes back to like, but the idea of placing it in either a small town or an urban environment and having the violence be so much more extreme was probably pretty new for Deathwish.

It's also, honestly, like kind of a part of a pretty disturbing, primarily 1970 genre of rape revenge movies, which was like more of a horror thing, but starts with straw dogs or is a, you know, you can mark it at straw dogs, which is a couple years before this or a year before this.

Yeah.

And then it's like hills have eyes and I spit on your grave mostly.

Spit in your grave.

Which they remade in an even like more violent and pretty awful way.

Yeah.

And like the, so this movie, I think, is almost more disturbing because it, for the first half of it, it's so grounded.

I mean, the entire Deathwish.

idea is like this really shy, retiring guy who has a little bit of experience in his childhood with guns,

becomes traumatized and then actually goes out like seeking out altercations with people so that he can take out his revenge on

the guys who did this to his wife.

My wife was watching this with me for some reason, likes Deathwish.

Okay.

And when he gets the role of quarters and he's just like, I'm going to take a stroll at night here.

And she's like, I love this.

Kind of want to do this.

The role of quarters, come, come mess with me.

And that led to the role of the sock of sodas and bad boys.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

There's some good sock violence.

Yeah.

We had the socks, soap socks in

full metal jacket.

Right.

Some pile.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We should try to get a pyramid going.

The social team rushes to their computers.

So is this a Bronson movie or a New York is falling apart movie?

If you had to pick one or the other, because this is another, this is another reason why I find this movie so fascinating.

We're heading into this world of New York, basically from mid-70s all the way through to the Warriors, where it's like new york is completely fallen apart it is scary it's weird there's all these little subcultures going on here and you kind of have to take matters in your own hands or you might get run over by one of these gangs or there's things happening over here and over here and there was this lawlessness that's just in all these movies yeah becomes a character i think it was a pretty wild time back then i to me it's like the other versions of this movie and we'll get to that when we get to casting what ifs and the development process for this film is there's a version of this movie that's way closer to straw dogs and way closer to like a neurotic i'm dealing with my environment but i'm a middle-aged man kind of movie yeah the insertion of bronson makes it an action movie and then turns it into like an action franchise going forward so i think it bronson defines it so i'm gonna i'm gonna say it's a bronson movie when was the first time you went to new york do you remember uh yeah in the 90s.

It was fine.

Like my experience with New York has always been that New York is actually not as, nowhere near as dangerous as it's like made out to be.

I think my first time was going to MSG for wrestling in 1980.

Okay.

With my future stepdad.

And we were going to New York.

Did you guys get confronted by the Warriors?

But at that point, I knew a bunch of these movies.

Yeah.

And I'm like, we're going to New York.

It's fucking crazy there.

You know, I just knew from all the movies.

I knew from like the Yankee games where Chris Chambliss is game-winning homer and everybody poured on the field.

So in my little kid head, I was like, this is like the most dangerous place in the world.

Yeah.

Did you think it was when you saw it?

No.

It was like, ah, this is this huge, big city.

But the way it was portrayed made me think that it was just like going to the wild, wild west.

I think that there's this cycle that everybody goes through that this movie maybe identifies the anxiety where

as you get older, it can't possibly be that you're getting older.

It's that the city is falling apart.

Yeah.

And so when I was in New York, when I was a kid, when I was in my 20s and when I was in my 30s, I was just like almost completely blind to the idea of like crazy wild 80s New York.

Yeah.

You know, and then as you get older, more and more of your friends are like, oh, the city, it's falling apart.

It's falling apart.

It's crazy on the subways.

It's crazy here.

It's crazy there.

We got to move to upstate or we're going to move to California.

And that's kind of what's driving some of the drama in the first half of Deathwish.

It's just like all of Paul's more conservative friends are like, we should throw all these people in jail or whatever.

And Paul's like, well, that's not what, you know, proper society does.

And then he gets pushed and pushed and pushed.

But I think a lot of it is almost like a midlife crisis movie as much as it's like a revenge movie.

Well, you hit this point when you get older with New York City.

Where the fact that it seems like there's no ceiling and it's fucking crazy is like the best thing in the world.

Yeah.

But usually, when you're near either late teens or mid-20s, we're like, this place is awesome.

I don't know what the fuck's going on.

I can get so much fucking trouble here.

Oh my god, yeah, doesn't shut down.

I don't know what's going to happen at three in the morning.

And then, as you get older, you're right.

You're like, man, New York's falling apart.

I just feel like New York's basically been the same probably the entire time I've been alive.

Yeah.

Just, it's how you portray it.

Bronson,

the Liam Neeson of the 70s.

Like, kind of unintentionally.

Like, that's the thing.

I mean, he's obviously always been this iconic action Western military character and is just one of the most unique faces, voices, and vibes in movie history.

But the craziest thing about him is to read interviews with him and they're like, so you made, you made Deathwish.

And he's like, yeah, I actually don't think violence solves anything.

Like, he was like this very different kind of guy than the people he played.

He starts out, he's in Magnificent Seven, Great Escape, Dirty Dozen, Once Upon a Time in the West in the 60s.

But he's like one of those guys.

He's never the star of the Queen.

He's never been queen.

But he's like tough.

He's fucking ripped.

Something happens.

He does like the Leo and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, goes to Europe and becomes a huge star in Europe making these spaghetti westerns.

Yeah.

And then comes back in 72 and 73, and he makes Chato's Land, which I never seen.

That's another

Michael Winter movie.

Yeah, The Mechanic, which I have seen.

And the Stone Killer.

All of a sudden, he's a major star.

And then in 74, he makes Mr.

Majestic and Deathwish.

And at that point, he has his little weird mustache

that is kind of captivating in 4K Blu-ray because I could buy this in 4K Blu-ray.

Oh, yeah.

It was like $11.99.

I'm like, fine.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Twist my arm.

$12 in underwear.

You got to see Gold Bloom in 4K.

I got to see every mustache hair for Bronson.

I can't really fully explain Bronson, but there's been a few of these.

He's basically Segal of the previous generation.

It's hard to explain.

It's honestly when I look at him, when you see him in Hawaii when the movie is first opening and he's on his vacation with his wife and

hanging out with his swimsuit and he stands up.

You're like, that looks like an alien.

Like, guys don't look like that anymore where the face is super old, but the body looks like somebody took a knife and carved it out of leather and rock.

And he's never worn suntan.

Like he's a real, like, I put on tanning oil guy.

Like, I want to get like UV rays.

It's an insane physique.

I was going to do this later, the Dr.

Richard Kimball in Inappropriate Body Award.

This guy's an architect.

He's got 2.3% body fat.

He's fucking jacked.

He's got a 12-pack.

I don't know how to explain him.

And I think we've had a few of these.

Stallone is more explainable because

he always had the unintentional comedy.

Van Dam was always

kind of an unbelievable athlete and always had a couple postcard moves.

You could imitate his accent.

Schwarzenegger, giant, could do his accent.

Segal,

you know, Kyle Brandt and I have tried on a couple movies, tried to explain him.

Ponytail, can't really act.

Something hilarious about him the whole time.

I don't know where Bronson fits in.

It really is like a Liam Neeson thing because he talks like this.

Yeah.

And every line he delivers.

Well, but Bronson, I mean, there is an interesting thing where Bronson's like evolving from that character actor or that supporting actor.

I mean, he's so good in those movies, like 30 Dozen and Great Escape that you're mentioning.

I think he's good in everything.

He's awesome, but it's strange to watch him carry an entire film.

I think you're right.

Like, my favorite probably performance by him, other,

I think it's Once Upon a Time in the West, just because he's so mysterious in that movie.

Um, but yeah, when you put him front and center, like Neo Liam Neeson is like a very accomplished actor, but before he becomes Mr.

Vigilante, I have skills.

Like, Bronson was more or less like a character actor, like action movie star that then became like the centerpiece of these films.

Yeah, Liam Neeson was competing against like Ray Fiance and people like that, and then all of a sudden does take in, and then that's just to he just becomes Bronson.

Bronson said in 74,

I supply presents.

There are never never any long dialogue scenes to establish a character.

He has to be completely established at the beginning of the movie and ready to work.

So that's it.

He knew who he was.

Yeah.

He's like,

I don't know, like in basketball.

I'm just here to

set picks and grab some rebounds, help you protect the realm a little bit.

Yeah.

That's all.

That's all I'm here for.

Don't ask me to really be in a big acting scene.

I'm going to have my family just get traumatized in the worst possible way.

And you're not even going to be sure if I'm like that bummed out about it.

We're going to get into that.

Yeah.

I just shaking it off.

So

75, it has hard times.

And he has a movie called Breakout that apparently did well.

And he's the fourth biggest star in that box office thing in 1975.

It's Robert Redford, Barbara Streisand, Al Pacino, and Charles Bronson.

Yeah.

And that was kind of the piece.

I think there's always

a guy.

Now I would say it's Statham, right?

Yeah.

Who can get these movies made,

but nothing else.

Like William Goldman always used to write about the movie star galaxy in the 70s.

About if you can get Redford or if you can get one of these guys, Newman, whoever, Clint, you can get your picture made if they want to make it.

Bronson, I don't think could have done all the president's men, respectfully.

Well, there's a couple movies that he's heard he goes all the way to the top.

we got we got to keep making calls damn it Ben Bradley

I don't know if that would have worked Bronson as Ben Bradley would have been sick though instead of Robards if he was doing the speech at the end you better be right

nothing's writing on this other than the future of the country and he guns a book down

for the first day I'm literally gonna kill you he did uh he turned down the shootest with that became a John Will William movie, one of the last ones.

He turned down City Slickers in 91 because he didn't want to die in the movie.

He had this, I mean, the Bronson research, I defy anyone to find like kind of a quirkier, weirder

A-list stuff.

Give one normal response to a movie quote.

Yeah, he would turn down parts because like the shootest,

I think that was the one where the guy has...

has some sort of cancer.

He's like, I don't want to have cancer in a movie.

Just, that's it.

He's out.

City Slickers, which was a great part that won Jack Palance, the Oscar.

Yeah, Bronson's like, I can't die in a movie.

And just turns it down.

And it would have been like the crowning achievement of his whole career.

Once upon a time in Hollywood Rules, he's following.

It's like, I'm not supposed to die.

I'm Charles Bronson.

He didn't get Capricorn one, a movie that I might be the only one that likes.

And then he tested for Escape from New York and the studio pushed for it.

And Carpenter

John Carpenter said he's too old.

Yeah, he would have been in his 60s by then because he's like in his 50s for death wish right

would i not own charles bronson and escape from new york on 4k blu-ray yeah of course

but if you it's i don't think he could pull off a half of what's russell does no i think you need stunt doubles all that stuff he felt like in this movie he said he he said i was a really miscast person

It was more a theme that would have been better for Dustin Hoffman or somebody who could play a weaker kind of man.

Little Dustin drive.

Dustin.

He's like, oh.

Well, because Hoffman had just been in Straw Dogs, where that's the entire point of his character.

Yeah.

Still, shots fired.

Michael Winter, the director, said, take it.

We'll make him a more active and viral architect.

And we'll all make a pot full of money.

I don't know where Vero got in there.

It's not like Charles is like laying pipe there.

Well, I think because this novel, I don't even know.

I guess in Hawaii, maybe.

Yeah, he tries to.

And then, like, he kind of, he kind of gets a little bit of a bachelor pad going.

He does.

There might, there feels like there's a deleted senior too.

Yeah.

I've met an escort.

Where he's back out on the

prostitute diner, too.

Right.

In any case,

the fascinating part about this is it's adapted from a novel by Brian Gardner, I think.

What was his last name?

Brian Garfield.

Garfield.

I bought it on eBay.

Okay.

And part of my collection of movies turned, books turn into movies.

There's a version of this movie that is way closer to like, say dog day or serpico yeah than what we get

and i think that's why bronson was probably identifying how he was he was the awkward fit but then michael winner turns out to be right that they're they have identified uh

a 1970s anxiety and

talking point that the movie dramatizes and fantasizes about that i think like captured something serpo mean streets taxi driver and then at the same time Woody Allen's making.

Danny Hall in Manhattan.

And this is a completely different side of New York that seems way more fun.

And then by the time we get to the late 80s, they started embracing New York as like a happy character.

Yet when Harry Metz out.

Did you wish there was a scene where Paul and Deathwish was walking by Annie and Alvie from Andy Hall?

Yeah, he probably shoots.

He probably shoots Alvie.

Yeah, Alvie, whatever his name was.

This film became a big deal.

Bronson became a huge star.

It eventually copycatted.

It had these copycat vigilante incidents, most famously in 1984, which I remember

because I was living in Connecticut at the time.

Bernard Goetz

just wiped out four Subway dudes and it became the Deathwish murder.

And became like, it was the biggest story in the tri-state area for a year.

And it felt like something, and then it would turn into like people going on talk shows talking about pros and cons of just being able to shoot people.

Wacky wacky eras i mean they're doing that in the the in the media drops in death wish itself yeah and i think one of the reasons why this is such a interesting movie to talk about on this pod is this was so such a divisive movie at the time yeah the reviews were like man nice job or this is a deplorable piece of that should be flushed down the toilet

uh and it's true there was such a spectrum of responses we're feeling the same thing with the with the uh ringer team

you mean mean they got the hush from over here?

I don't know if the guys, the guys over there, Craig might just be like, I'm not even reviewing this at the end of it.

Michael Winter, The Mechanic, Scorpio.

Scorpio is really good.

Scorpio and the Stone Killer.

Scorpio, great.

It's a title for a movie.

Yeah.

Burt Lancaster.

I feel like Scorpio, I'm probably in good hands.

I don't really need to know anything else.

Yeah, it's like CIA assassination.

Scorpio and each other.

Yeah, I sure am.

He kind of goes off the they bring him back for Deathwish 2, where he goes to LA.

Which, if you think, if you think this movie has a pretty deplorable assault scene in it, Deathwish 2 is like hold my beer and has one of the worst scenes that I actually can't, I think there's been stories written about it.

Like, it's kind of like the peak of how, why did you guys decide this was a good idea to do it in a movie that's going to be in the theater?

Um, and there's a lot of stuff written about just how fucking weird he was, Michael Winter.

Okay.

Yeah.

I didn't know.

Deathwish 2 is L.A.

Deathwish 3, he comes home back to New York.

FYI, all of these are on 2-B, Pluto, wherever you are.

I watched a little, I refreshed my memory about Deathwish 3 last night.

Ed Lauder from Longest Yard.

I got to be honest, 3 is pretty solid.

3 is...

Not against 3.

3 is goofy as shit.

3 is like...

Paul comes back to New York from LA and essentially gets the green light from cops

to start going around and killing thugs.

But the thugs are way closer to escape from New York thugs than the 1970s guys.

Well, that was when we talked about.

And Alex Winter, isn't it?

Golan Globus.

Yeah.

And those guys, there's a great documentary that we talked about with one of the Kyle Brandt pods.

Those guys are just like, need a star, give them some money.

We're just going to crank out these action movies.

We don't care if they're good.

And they made four Deathwish sequels.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

Deathwish 3 3 is not terrible.

I mean, yeah, if you're looking for, if you're in that Cobra kind of area.

If you're doing the 2B surf.

It's not terrible.

And I got to be honest,

I don't hate Deathwish 2 either.

You just got to skip the first half hour.

As soon as he's in LA, like,

there's five guys I need to kill.

I'm just going to go through and try to find them one at a time.

Pretty good.

He's a little bit more precise than Deathwish 2.

There's a great scene in Deathwish 2 where I think somebody's on PCP, one of the guys he needs to kill, and the guy jumps out a window and the cops start coming at him.

And all of a sudden the guy turns into like Adrian Peterson in the 2006 season.

Just are you seeing that Adrian Peterson was on Angel Dust?

No, just like pick the best football player you've ever seen.

No, I know.

He's just shedding tacklers, flipping guys over and he just fights cops for like a minute.

I think it becomes a social video every once in a while.

Yeah,

I've the PCP.

Whatever the anti-PCP lobby, it really worked.

Really scared me off of Angel Dust.

He had a run in TV and movies where it scared the living hell of it.

Yeah, because it was like you would do it and there would never be like, oh, I'm high.

It would always be like I'm jumping out of a window or like head-butting a car.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember there was a white shadow episode where somebody went to the roof.

No.

When it really got an after-school special territory.

Yeah.

And somebody took it and just jumped off the roof of the school.

Yeah.

And was like, I can fly.

And I was like, I'm never fucking going.

Well, PCP, though, the real danger was like it could be in weed.

That was always the scary old wives' tale they would tell you.

It's like, that could be, that could be angel dust.

Now we have fentanyl.

That's right.

Same thing.

Yeah.

You like to go with what I told my kids.

Yeah.

Be careful.

Uh, this movie was made for 3.7 million and it made 30 million dollars.

Roger Eber gave it three stars.

What an interesting man.

Death Wish is a quasi-fascist advertisement for urban vigilantes.

Done up in a slick and exciting action movie.

We like it even when we're turned off by the message

that was raj yeah then he said uh

michael winter gives us a new york in the grip of a reign of terror this doesn't look like 1974 but like one of these bloody future cities and science fiction novels about anarchy in the 21st century literally every shadow holds a mugger every subway train harbors a killer the park is a breeding ground for crime

urban paranoia is one thing but death wish is another.

Raj, he's really, Raj is like,

he's not even looking at this.

The actual New York Times called this film irresponsible.

Yeah.

I think a lot of, I mean, there were a lot of critics.

Did your dad review this?

I would think this is a little bit before his movie critic days.

This is 74.

I don't think he was doing movies until the later 70s.

Think about.

He would have hated it, though.

Think about the New York parks and all the shit that was going on from a movie standpoint.

Oh, like with cruising.

Yeah.

The Warriors.

Yeah.

If you've just ever liked maybe AI, you just merged all these things together.

The New York cinematic universe of the 1970s, this is a billion-dollar idea.

Actually, it's not a billion-dollar idea.

Do you know AI do this?

Yeah, just put everybody together.

Sam Altman, come on.

I want Al Pagino from Cruising hanging out with Roy Schneider and Marathon Man.

Um, one other thing about this movie is we talk about titles a lot.

One of the best titles is this the origin of the term death wish, pretty much?

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

Were people like, man, that guy's got a death wish before death wish?

I don't know.

How do we find that out?

Ask Chat GPT.

Chat GPT.

No, don't do that.

It could be in Chat GPT.

No, I would assume it popularized it.

It definitely did, right?

My only regret is nobody says the word, the phrase death wish during the movie.

Yes, but it's, it's very, very i think it's interesting that paul is the one that has the death wish you know like he's the one who's pushing it and putting himself at risk but nobody says you've got a death wish man no do they ever say that in two or three i can't remember probably they they work it in you know they say it in 48 hours which i i forgot there you go because kate says to reggie they gave me 48 they gave me 48 hours to find out whatever i'm like title yeah there boom did it um

we're gonna take a break and and we're going to come back and do the categories.

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All right.

Most rewatchable scene.

This movie somehow doesn't have a re-watchable scene for 40 minutes.

Oh, which I think means you can just come right in 40 minutes.

Just honestly, if you're like, if you don't feel like you have the stomach for it, I think you can skip to the 40-minute mark.

You could probably skip to him going to Tucson.

And then you want to wait for what's age the worst to talk about that scene?

No, let's do it now because I think it's a really difficult point of control for people.

The movie starts.

They're in Hawaii.

She's just great.

Really loves his wife.

Having a great time.

Good vacation.

Comes back.

Maui in the 70s looks awesome.

You know, every time we're in Maui, I had this in WhatsApp the Best.

There's been a lot of stuff from the 70s in Hawaii, and it's always amazing.

Brady Bunch, I remember they went there for three episodes.

It was great.

Also, it just is always great to watch it just be like the guy could just walk up to the desk and be like, here's my plane ticket.

No TSA.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're right.

Well, it also just seemed like you could go on any beach, just bring a blanket.

Yeah.

Nobody's like, excuse me, sir.

So they come back and the wife and daughter are like, let's go get some groceries.

They decide to get the groceries delivered.

And Jeff Goldboom and his two cronies

followed up.

Stalk them back to their apartment.

And it's a pretty awful scene.

Yeah.

That I, I honestly, I don't understand some of this stuff with the 70s.

But

it really feels like a lot of the goal was to provoke people.

Yeah.

I mean, I think.

And it wasn't just with violence.

It was with sex or whatever else.

And it's just like the the kind of scene that would just never, ever happen now.

You know, what's also weird is that I

kind of wonder how many times I had actually seen this movie on TV versus the actual film film.

Good point.

Because I forgot how graphic it was.

So when I was watching it for this, I was like, oh, shit, this is way worse than Deliverance.

You know, this is pretty.

This is pretty close to spit on your grave and some of like the exploitation, like grindhouse horrors.

Yeah, and I wonder what, do you do that because you're trying to set up like this is why this guy snapped because yeah but it almost works better if it's a better actor than bronson like that's the thing is like bronson's not reacting that emotionally to what happened to his wife and daughter So it's like you could do that if you were going to do maybe some of the other actors that you had and like watch them go into like deep emotional crisis.

Bronson's just like, I guess I got to go back to my apartment.

Yeah, I got a, I got a thing to do in Arizona next week.

The son-in-law is like, dad, we've got trouble.

Yeah.

He seems not really grasping the stuff either.

Anyway, it's a weird way to start a movie.

Not going to defend it.

And in a lot of vigilante movies after the fact,

I don't want to say this is a blanket term, but I think roughly more than half, if not 70%,

the violence against the person's family either takes place off-screen or is obscured somehow.

Like you'd like, you get the impression of what happened, but it's not like, hey, let's spend like five minutes watching Jeff Goldblum do this.

Very strange.

Yeah.

Well, the first re-watchable scene is the roll of quarters.

Yes.

Which is just great.

It's also like, why is he in the bank getting quarters?

Why is he getting $20 in quarters?

What's he got in his hand?

And he's just kind of waiting for somebody.

Yeah.

But the best part is when he comes back and he starts swinging the roll of quarters around, he's like, just kind of loses his mind.

It's easily the most gifable moment for this.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

It starts swinging it against the thing.

We want to do a best, like, DIY weapons power ranking.

Oh, that's a really good idea.

Yeah.

But this is like when the Warriors win with just Buddy Healed.

It's just swinging quarters around.

Actual quote from my wife.

This movie makes me want to go out with a roll of quarters and beat up bad guys.

Okay.

Yeah.

Put that in her Wikipedia.

The Wild West saloon brawl is really good.

Yeah.

I just wanted to point out.

Does this happen?

Like where they do like stages.

That was an elaborate stage.

Yeah.

I couldn't believe how good that was.

Yeah, you ever see like the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular at Disney?

No.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it as cool as that?

I mean, they're falling off roofs.

Yeah.

There's like they do the whole boulder chase in the Indiana Jones thing.

Like the guy runs away from a boulder.

Yeah.

It's at Disney, I think, or Universal.

Anyway, the whole sequence actually, it's a sneaky, almost best, most rewatchable scene for me, like the 10-minute Tucson sequence.

I grew up with them, all kinds of guns.

You see, my father was a hunter.

I guess out here, you call him a gunman.

My mother was the other side of the coin.

When my father was killed in a hunting accident,

some fool mistook him for a deer, you see.

My mother won the toss.

I never touched a gun since.

Yeah.

Just because it really lays the groundwork, not only for what Paul's going to become, get a little bit of like, oh, when I was a child, I used to handle guns all the time.

The Bronson's getting better.

Thank you.

You're really workshopping it.

You're really workshopping the Bronson.

The Jane Chill character is awesome.

The guys taking him around Tucson.

And then...

Just the connecting what's going on with the Paul character in the 1970s with our perception of what cowboys in the 1870s were like.

Yeah.

And like the Wild west mythology wild west justice vigilantes out on the on the open range kind of thing

yeah i think that could be a for a good name for your first son ames

ames horlbeck yeah i can tell he sounds like a kick-ass kid yeah i named him after death wish

you guys ever see death wish the best character in death wish

uh kersey's first shooting is my next rewatchable

Which leads to then the second shooting, which is the three-on-one.

That's when with the movie, that would be, what's that, what's our category?

The okay, motherfucker.

When the movie goes up a notch when he's just like looking around, it's like, hey, there's three guys robbing somebody in an alley.

Yeah, I'm going to take all three of them down.

Um,

so I really enjoyed the police sergeant in this movie, played by Vincent Gardinia.

Yeah,

he has

40 people in the office.

We could be looking for a man who's had a member, all members of his family killed by muggers.

now

he shoots that pistol pretty good

right

okay

combat veteran

so put vietnam vets at the top of the list because they're youngest and toughest then you can work your way through korea and world war ii oh my god

it's really funny

another thing i love about these 70s new york police movies is just the police station scenes and just which i guess were all real.

Like, it all looks like Barney Miller on like steroids.

Either that or they were shooting so much police stuff back then, and they were shooting so many movies and TV shows that they had working sets, you know, so that they were able to kind of dress it a little bit differently, but they would have like a police precinct set.

But a lot of this stuff feels location.

Like the

first precinct that he walks into to find the detective who's working on his wife's case.

Yeah.

And then there's the guy who's like, I need my dog.

He's key to my income.

Right.

That hole seems like an actual police station.

Well, he somehow figures out in 90 seconds, check all the murders from the last three months.

He's probably a combat vet.

I think he's a vigilante.

He just does all this stuff of one alley shooting.

I think we're supposed to, Ocho is like supposed to be like this amazing Popeye Doyle level famous cop because he's on People magazine.

Yeah,

major celebrity.

The Subway Double Murder would be my next scene.

Yeah.

You know, Kirsty's really getting into it because he comes back for the second shot for each guy to make sure you're dead shot.

It's like, oh, you're really

exploring the studio's face.

I think I actually got served a YouTube video the other day that is Macaulay killing Wangro and Heat, and it's apparently called like Mozambique technique.

And I was like, I'm in a bad part of YouTube when I am now getting weird like soldiers of fortune videos that are

praising Heat for their double execution.

Oh my God.

That's where you have to do the please don't recommend me the Dan Lebanon tab.

Honestly, I haven't done that yet, but okay.

I've done that a few times.

Yeah.

There's one time it, I don't know what happened, but it recommended a Dan Lebatard clip to me, and I went right in there and I said, I'm not interested.

Next one,

Subway platform shooting.

Kirsty's little heat, he's heat checking in at this point.

Well, because also the really interesting part of this movie is whether or not Kirsty's getting addicted to the game.

Oh, no question.

This one, he raises the stakes.

He ends up getting stabbed.

Yeah.

He's walking around.

He's flashing money in diners and stuff.

Yeah.

That's when he takes out, what is that giant wallet he has?

There's just like

a huge water cash.

And he's like,

how much is my coffee?

Next one is the big ending scene.

Kirsty on the big parks.

In the the park.

In the promenade, yeah.

Guy's got a gun at the top.

We got Boom Boom Washington at the bottom from Welcome Back Cotter with another guy.

Shoots all three, gets shot, and then chases the dude.

We got a little chase scene and then passes out.

Red.

He's like, Deal your hand.

Druh.

And then passes out.

And then I would throw in at the end, just the cop telling him to get out.

Let's pretend this never happened.

Inspect the.

by sundown.

And then that's it.

And he's like having this fantasy life where he's still a cowboy.

It's crazy.

But it's actually like a really interesting portrait of a guy coming apart.

I don't know always that Bronson is like up to that part of the job, which is like the serious side of this movie, but he's really good at shooting guys.

So your favorite's the saloon brawl?

I just like as part of the film, in some ways, the Tucson stuff is my favorite part, but the last shootout is like the iconic.

This is ending's great.

Well, one of the reasons this was a re-watchable, first of all, it was on TV.

Like you said, you never saw like the really bad stuff.

This was on TV.

I feel like whenever I would turn it on, it would be him stalking around New York City.

And my dad would be like, Oh, he's going to do Roll of Quarters.

Yeah, this was on TV for 40 years, and you could always just come in at the Roll of Quarters and just watch him just gun down bad guys for an hour.

It's basically a Western.

Um, I'm going with the same thing.

What's the most 1974 thing about this movie?

God, what isn't creepy, scary 1970s New York City,

a movie hero who is a Korean war vet.

You don't get that very often.

Very old 1974.

50-year-old Korean War vet, yeah.

TWA Airlines, just walk on there.

Man, thank you, Howard.

TWA sounded great.

The assault scene we mentioned, very 1974.

The overcoats in this movie.

Yeah, just the way the guys dress.

Yeah, there's like these weird, the colors are like down, and I didn't really understand those.

And then this is my number one.

Magazine billboards.

telling us what's happening in the story through like Harper

Magazine and People Magazine and these big billboards and magazines.

When was the last time we had a billboard of a magazine?

A long time ago, pre-internet, probably.

Decades.

Yeah.

I would say another 1974 thing for me was guys taking long boozy lunches and being racist.

Like Sam and Paul going to like a long bar and grill lunch in the middle of the day.

And they'd be like, let's go draw some buildings.

I've had four pops and a steak.

I just wish the world was all white people.

Yeah.

Can I have another scotch, please?

Oh, one more 1974 thing.

Has anyone eaten liver with spaghetti since 1974?

He makes his son laugh.

I said that in what stage the words.

If I went to somebody's house and they asked, do I want the liver with the spaghetti or on the side?

I'm out.

That sounds...

Who eats liver?

I had liver last fall and I'm just getting over it.

Did you guys ever, do you ever had liver?

No.

What animal's liver is it?

Cow.

Cow?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it was delicious.

Was it?

But I felt like it was coming off my skin, like smell-wise for a long time.

Like liver worst or something.

That's like a grandpa meal to me growing up.

There's just no scenario.

My dad, when we liver or tongue.

We used to drive from Philly to Vermont, and my dad would always stop at a Howard Johnson's on the New York State Freeway and get liver and onions.

And I'd be like, I'm driving with mom now.

Capping up with a couple sicks,

smoking at the table, eating the liver and onions.

Oh my god, no.

Like the bat brass special.

Yeah.

What's aged the best?

We mentioned old school 70s police stations.

Yeah.

Really enjoy that environment.

Cities with wildly different views on guns, I think, has weirdly aged well since we're in that area still.

We still are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you find it comforting to watch stuff that's set in like the 70s or whenever and realize that we're just arguing about the same things forever?

Yes.

We didn't rather than like, oh, the world is falling apart.

It's like, oh, it turns out we've been having this fight for a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of the stuff they talk about in this movie, you're like, all right.

Yeah.

Definitely would hear that exchange right now.

Yeah.

Somewhere.

I read this thing.

There's an article about.

Why people watch the same movies and TV shows over and over again.

It's a big feature.

They did a study on it.

Do you know what what the answer is why

because it relaxes people because they're not tense when they watch something and they don't know where it's going you get a little more whatever and i was like they've just described the rewatchables i'll have to i'll have to tweet that out of the rewatch do you find it comfort like me watching 48 hours last night even though i've seen it 395 times right before i fell asleep i do that with big i i've done that with big trouble in little china like 10 times this year yeah i'm just like i just want the opening 20 minutes of big trouble in little china before i go to bed Right.

But that's like.

It's comfort food.

Yeah.

It's comfort.

But there's like an entire like calms your body down.

Brawl between triads in Big Trouble and Little China.

I don't know why it's comfort food.

This is so relaxing.

Yeah.

Two more what's the best for me.

Traumatized movie characters who become catatonic.

Yeah.

I always feel like it's a good gimmick.

Oh, you can't snap out of it.

You can't snap out of it.

She snaps out of it in Deathwish, too.

Well, she comes to Los Angeles, yeah.

Really?

Sergeant Frank picking up the people magazine that he's on.

I really enjoy.

Yeah.

He's like looking at the cover.

What do you have?

I have Charles Bronson's Beach Body.

It's Age the Best, but it's also like not a body you see anymore.

Paul becoming addicted to the hunt is really cool.

Like even after they're like, hey, all you have to do is just get out of town.

Like

we're cool to look the other way on this one.

And he's just like, I don't know.

I really love it.

Yeah.

He gets a taste.

Yeah.

And then all the New York media coverage of Paul, like giving him a nickname, all the like press conferences.

Yeah.

It's really, it's kind of amazing to watch like the churn of newspaper and TV journalism back then pre-like any kind of internet and just the depiction of that.

I miss it.

Denneth Eve's Benihana Awards, Scene Stealing, Location.

I got Sex Worker Diner.

Interesting.

It seems like an incredible cast of characters in there.

The lady was like, there goes the pussy possibly.

That's like a film within a film.

Yeah, you're right.

I had that last park shootout with the stairs.

It's just like really well done.

Meanwhile, Pacino and Cruising's over in the little tunnel on the side.

The baseball furies are walking by.

What do you have for Great Shot Gordo, most cinematic?

It's pretty disturbing, but all the weird wide-angle lenses of

the mother and daughter like kind of hanging out in the apartment before the thugs get there.

It just makes you feel so on edge because you're like, why is this almost like fisheye?

Yeah.

The way they're sitting on the bed and talking.

And I think it's, it really gets under your skin, as does obviously the subsequent sequence.

Kid Cuddy Pursuit a Happiness Award.

Dude, Herbie Hancock.

Best needle drop.

Fucking cooking in this.

Herbie's cooking.

Absolutely amazing score.

Can I give you one other candidate?

Yeah.

Paul Kersey, when he invites his son-in-law over and

he's blasting game show music and making liver and spaghetti.

And it's like,

if I was the son-in-law, I would have been like, you know, dad, there's a bed right next to

that.

It's like you have your website called BetterHelp.

Yeah.

I think you should call.

He's just lost his mind at that point.

Yeah.

Why isn't he playing like disco or, I don't know, like Jethro Tall?

And I love it.

He's like, turn it up.

I can't hear it.

Well, I brought it.

How do you like it, Liver?

The Chess Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for Best Character Name.

Ames Giantshill?

Good.

Is the guy's name?

I think Inspector Franco Choa is pretty, pretty classic cop name.

Did he look like an Italian to you, though?

I guess he's Vincent Gardini.

Yeah.

Did he look like a Franco Choa?

I don't know.

I just really

did.

Inspector Ochoa is a really good cop name for the 70s, especially.

What do you have for your flex category choice?

Boy, oh boy.

The I used to fuck guys like you in Prison Award for craziest quote.

Jeff Goldblum screaming, kill Rich.

Oh, no.

I don't know if we can use that.

But that is it.

He screams that, and then he fucking hits the, he kills his wife.

It's pretty awful.

Yeah.

You think we should change the award?

Oh, no.

I don't know if we're going to change like that new title of the award.

I just don't know if I can say the C word.

I don't, probably not.

Okay.

I don't have to bleep it.

But I think you're right.

It's that or it's like Jeff Goldman saying, shit, we want money, mother.

He is.

Well, he's coming up.

Butch's girlfriend award for week link of the film.

Other than that scene.

Jack, the son-in-law.

I have the son-in-law.

He's horrible.

Yeah.

He's just a horrible character.

Yeah.

I don't understand any piece of it.

Why he's such a loser.

Why he's not more.

Like, obviously, his father-in-law is losing his mind.

Yes.

And he can see it.

Doesn't seem concerned about that.

Doesn't even really seem that concerned about his wife.

Dad, they're going to put him in a sanitarium tomorrow.

And just doesn't seem like, I can't believe this happened.

Everything about him is off.

I had this in Apex Mountain, but this character is also definitely Apex Mountain for calling your father-in-law dad.

It's really confusing for the movie.

I'm like, wait, is that his father?

Because if I was Charles Bronson, it would be like not your dad.

I had that in What's Age the Worst?

Son-in-laws who call their father-in-law dad.

I don't understand.

Craig, do you do this?

Absolutely not.

It's a great call.

I don't think anyone does this anymore.

I think it's a 70s thing, though.

It's like calling your wife the old lady.

Yeah.

But like things that went sideways.

He seems so eager to call him dad.

He's like, yes, got it.

Charles Bronson's my dad.

We rarely get to give this up, but the Stephen Seagal Heart to Kill Award for did this movie need a better intimacy coordinator?

Yes.

The answer is yes.

And then the Elizabeth Shoe is an Oxford Electrochemist Award for Most Ridiculous Casting.

Charles Bronson as an architect.

Charles Bronson architect.

Yeah.

The way that they depict Charles Bronson's architecture skills is him sitting at blueprints for a while, seemingly drawing circles.

Yeah.

And then later he's just like, he's a development.

And it's like a

monopoly board with a bunch of little houses.

And they're like, this is going to lose a lot of money, but it's beautiful.

Look at all these.

I put some olive trees right there.

Everybody has a hill in a backyard.

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Let's go to What's Age the Worst other than the terrible assault scene.

Yeah, sure.

Graphic nature of the rape murder scene.

The legal apartment search I had some issues with.

Not possible.

There's not a single warrant in this movie.

Not sure that was legal, just to kind of waltz in with a locksmith.

I've all heard by the same token that crime was out of control in the cinematic version of the 1970s in New York.

Cops did not adhere to the rule of law.

They certainly do not.

For what's age the worst, I mean, you'd catch the vigilante right now because they'd have cameras everywhere.

This movie would be five minutes away.

Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, he's right there.

Yes.

Paul Kersey, the architecture.

They would have also like cameras in the supermarket, cameras like in the apartment building.

Like there would not be like, we snuck in with the movers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you have for What's Age the Worst?

Graphic Nature of the Rape Murder Scene.

The nickname, the Vigilante.

Just dig deeper, New York.

Come on.

Like,

there's not like a single cool element to this killer that would be like the silver bullet killer or something like that.

The real Batman, something like that.

Just Paul's general,

guess it's time to go home and go back to work.

Right?

Three days after

easily the most traumatizing thing that could happen to somebody.

And he's like, well, what am I going to do?

Moan and cry forever?

Well, and then he doesn't even paint the walls for like a month.

He just kind of

paints them bright orange, which is definitely a sign of a mental breakdown.

Well, but it's the movie does a good job of like, this guy's lost his marbles.

He's making liver and spaghetti and he's got bright orange walls and he's playing game show music.

That architecture firm did not offer mental health days.

Definitely not.

Lawrence Hilton Jacobs as the one of the last smuggers

who then became Boom Boom Washton and you know Welcome Back Cotter was one of the biggest shows of the late 70s.

It's just weird to see him in this.

Yeah.

And Jeff Goldboom from the big show and many other things.

Oh, I mean, there's so many random people showing up in this movie.

We're like, I can't believe this.

But that comes a little bit later.

I want to say also, since you mentioned the casting, one of the things that's aged the worst is Michael Winner and Charles Bronson talking about who to cast as Paul's wife in the beginning.

And I think Michael Winner was like, Jill Ireland, who's Charles Bronson's real-life wife.

And Charles Bronson was like, absolutely not.

Not after what happens in the movie.

Yeah, I'm not having her thrown around by a bunch of thugs.

And then they just were like, can you imagine being Hope Lang, who plays the wife?

Yeah.

And be like, oh, great.

Thanks, guys.

Plan B.

Yeah.

I have for what's age the worst, the Bruce Willis 2018 remake, because I even think when we started rewatchables, I remember the first year we had some sort of conversation about movies that should be remade.

And Deathwish was clearly one of those.

Like, it's such a great idea.

And then they actually did it, and it wasn't good.

Yeah.

And it also felt.

too close to the equalizer.

We've done it now.

I think if you were going to really try to like do something creative, you would basically have to tell wish from the perspective of the criminals that he's hunting you know you would have to be like we're like a new york a couple of new york street guys but there's this rumor that this crazy white guy is walking around with a gun and we're like now investigating him but also trying to like protect the other criminals flipping on its head i'd probably watch it

was there but do you have any more with this worst Was there a better title for this movie?

An old category I brought back.

Do you know Dee Laurentis was involved in this?

yeah, another one of my heroes in Paramount.

And they originally wanted to call this film the Sidewalk Vigilante.

Well, that's better than just the vigilante because they thought death being in the title was a deterrent.

Boy, were they wrong?

I think that was the opposite of a deterrent.

The Ruffle Hannah Rubidik Partridge Over Acting Award, the three bad guys, yeah, Goldblum.

Goldbloom.

Yeah, I don't know what is going on.

Yeah, the guy from the lead singer from Midnight Oil, Goldblum, and then the other guy.

And then just arranged.

Goldbloom

is in the Warriors four years early or five years early.

He's just doing, it's so amazing.

He's been asked about this movie a couple of times since then, where it's just like, oh,

kind of a shame that that's your early film.

He's like, no, I got to be in the movies.

And I think it was because he knew like a band guy.

like a guy in a band who just got him into got him into this film.

He's like, mom, go see my new movie.

Deathwish.

I'm in the first 15 minutes.

You can't miss me.

What a rocket ship to like star means in Big Chill a couple years later, right?

Yeah, yeah.

The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford.

How to stake a word.

Okay, so this, you go first because mine goes right into casting what ifs.

Vigilantes.

Eh?

What does that mean?

I don't know.

Crime rate went down.

Maybe we need some.

Cut the crime rate in half in 1970

with groans in the back of this room.

Let's just, let's, let's talk it out.

No, this is, I'm tough on crime.

The minority report.

Remember, I was for it.

Keep your precognitive milk.

I know.

I think that there's a difference between a vigilante and a thrill seeker with a death wish.

And Paul's out there, like, he didn't even do any detective work of like, let me find Goldblum, right?

He's just like, I'm just going around gunning guys down.

That was my biggest question.

It's like, why didn't he ever try to find them?

Yeah.

What's going on there?

Craig, I present to you Deathwish 2

because he finds them one at a time.

What do you have for How to State?

There is a version of this film.

The original director who was approached for it was Sidney LeMette, and one of the original pairings of actors was supposed to be Jack Lemon and Henry Fonda.

As Ochoa.

Within Deathwish, within this sort of iconic vigilante action movie that spawned multiple sequels, I think there is like an amazing fucked-up 70s drama film

about like an

emasculated New York businessman whose family is taken from him and is like, I don't have the tools to process what's happened to me.

And Jack Lemon would have been an incredible idea.

I don't know if it would have worked, but it would have been, I would love to have seen the Sydney Lehmet Jack Lemon version of this movie.

So he turned it down and do Serpico.

Would you have rather he did Serpico or Serpicico?

I would rather he had done Serpico.

Yes.

Yeah, it's tough.

If I don't get that Pacino performance, then that's a huge.

It would have been nice to Serpico right into Deathwish with Jack Lemon.

I'm with you.

Steve McQueen also turned it down.

Clean Eastwood said no thanks.

Allegedly, who knows?

Burt Lancaster, George C.

Scott, Frank Sinatra, Lee Marvin.

We're going to spend a second talking about it.

Elvis Presley, who's the last one.

First of all, I guess this is a relatively larger version of Elvis, right?

By 74.

Let me tell you something.

1974, Elvis playing Paul Kersey in Deathwish sounds like the greatest movie I'd own on anything.

You would rather Presley than Sinatra?

I just don't think Sinatra does it.

He's like, my wife would never be assaulted.

Yeah.

He would get some weird aggro Sinatra thing.

As you know, he was the coolest guy in the world.

I think George C.

Scott would have been good.

Elvis crammed into like an architect

two-piece suit that

put a little building over there on the hill.

Yeah.

Dorsey Scott doing this in hardcore would probably be a little intense for him.

He would have been good, though.

Yeah.

You know what?

That's true.

We've done hardcore.

You know, Deathwish is not uncharted territory.

Hardcore, another New York.

I guess that was USLA.

Yeah.

But same.

Yeah.

Mayu.

Same kind of thing.

Same like big city falling apart type of thing.

Best That Guy Award.

I got Jack Wallace, detective hank he's also in boogey nights he's yeah he's the guy with uh

with ricky j right yeah and he's he's our choice partner or like a sort of he's been a lot of stuff he's the guy for the people who saw the movie with the huge mustache yeah he was like i i'm not gonna ask any more questions the son-in-law is played by stephen keats who was also in friends of eddie coil big part

black sunday And then one of my favorites, Silent Rage.

Oh, yeah.

He played one of the doctors.

Did we do Silent Rage yet?

We have not.

It might be one of Craig's 10 favorite movies we've ever done.

Once he sees it.

Yeah.

It's really good.

Chuck Norris, Craig.

I haven't seen it.

It's been a while since I've seen it.

Guy Wouldn't Die.

Deion Waiter's Award.

Ames Janchel, would you go with?

Or would you go with Amaleigh Brown, the lady in the newscast who fought off the muggers?

Oh, with the hat pin.

I have Stuart Mergolin as Janchill.

The Lena Dunham running the Spawn Ranch Award for most jarring casting decision.

I'll give you Jeff Goldblum or I'll give you Christopher Guest as the cop who finds the gun.

I'll give you Olympia Dukakis as the

lady cop

who starts to figure out the entire thing.

They should redo this as like on Amazon and just have all of them in the cast like they had major parts.

They should also do it as a Christopher Guest mockumentary.

Why he shouldn't have done that?

Like a violent mockumentary?

Recasting Couch Director City.

I had John Kazale as the son-in-law.

Oh man, I mean, John Kazale was it would be another.

Imagine him playing Paul.

That would have been amazing.

Oh, him as Paul Kersey.

Oh my god, dude.

Yeah, Paul shouldn't be this like

Greek god.

You know, he should be like a

frail dude.

You don't talk to a guy like Ames Jensho like that.

Half-ass internet research.

Bronson asked for a California-based location so that he could be with his family in Bel Air.

And they said, fuck you.

We're filming Bel Air City.

There's a lot of good Bron.

I didn't realize how much good Brun.

We'd never really done a Bronson before.

I didn't realize how much good Bronson research he was.

Like, by all accounts, rough hang.

This is our first Bronson.

Yeah.

We haven't done that.

Everyone's like, yeah, kept to himself and a little difficult.

Like, nobody was like, oh, man, I love Charlie.

Great guy.

Not a lot of that.

Do you think he behaved himself on like the Great Escape or Dirty Dozen sets though?

I think he was just super quiet and not like, uh, where are we going tonight after the shooting?

Was he a good enough actor to warrant that behavior?

Like, why were people keeping?

I just think that there was a different

system back then.

And it's like, if he's a guy who keeps his body in shape and can convincingly fire a gun, he's got a job for life.

He was basically like the Colts getting Daniel Jones because they needed a qb

i don't know who is he in this scenario quinn eastwood the queen those guys were getting all the roles and then bronson okay we dropped down to bronson signed justin fields for two years for 20 million a year like he he was kind of in that mode but then he kind of became as big as quinneswood for like three years right it's like if you're seven feet tall and you can block shots you'll be in the nbm yeah

um

the writer of the book death wish

garfield brian garfield he was furious about the film.

He called it incendiary.

Yeah, because his book is much more critical of visual antiism.

Probably not number one.

Well, did you start reading it at all, or did you just get it as like to check it out?

I actually want to read it, but I know it's completely different than the movie.

Yeah.

He wrote two books that were, I don't know if they were very similar, but two got optioned and this one wound up being like a big deal.

He wrote a follow-up called Death Sentence, which was a response to this movie, not made into a movie.

Does Paul get the death sentence in this?

Maybe.

Bronson defended the film, said it was intended to be a commentary on violence, meant to attack violence, not romanticize it.

I think that the first film romanticized it.

Well, but do you say that because you've seen Deathwish 2 and 3 and all the other stuff from it?

Like, do you think that this film romanticizes violence?

Well, the last hour of the movie, you're like, get him, Chuck, get him.

I'm not.

I was really like, this is fucked up.

And that wasn't like this is fucked up, but I was like, I'm watching a guy spiral out.

It's a little bit more like taxi driver.

If you just watch it in the context of one film, if you watch it in the context of part of a franchise where this guy goes all over the country killing people.

I was watching it from the perspective of, man, on the subway platform, just take those two down.

Don't let the guy get behind you.

Just they're right in front of you.

I think he wants the challenge in that case.

So one other thing for half-assed,

there was always a rumor that Denzel played one of the alley thugs in his first movie appearance.

No shit.

At the 47-minute mark.

And this kept going and going.

And then finally, he gave gave an interview where he was like i wasn't in death wish was he like i wish i was no he just put the gabash on it he said he hadn't been acting yet because but he was mad that it was added to his imdb page that's funny yeah fishburns in too right

oh yeah yeah yeah

and uh yeah he's in the scene that somehow like is a hundred times worse than the death wish one scene apex mountain bronson i think yes

uh that's apex charlie yeah but like it's not my personal apex for him.

No, but for him, this leads to hard times and he's like a massive star in this movie.

I mean, no question.

Vigilantes,

maybe.

It turned into a phenomenon in the late 70s.

Yeah.

What would you go for scary New York City movies?

Warriors.

Yeah, me too.

Right there.

Vincent Gardenia,

I guess he was in Moonstruck.

Yeah, I feel like he's really...

This is probably his, I mean, he takes up most of the second half of this film.

They bring bring him back for two.

Yeah.

He goes, he sees some killings that are going on in L.A.

and decides to take a little axifole-esque cross-country trip to make sure what's going on.

Vigilante movies, I think, yes.

Unless you want to qualify John Wick because they killed this dog.

That's a really good example of like basically John Wick is Deathwish, but then take it in an entirely different direction.

But the first John Wick is essentially Death Wish.

Yeah, I feel like when it's

taken a Vigilante movie, because he's specifically just killing those guys, yeah, and it's his, and it's she's not killed, it's just a kidnapping.

I feel like this one stands.

Wick and Paul can't come back.

Like, that's the whole point.

Taken, he's still got to maintain some semblance of a soul.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Death Wish 1,

he's basically like, this broke my brain.

I'm going to now soft crime by myself.

Yeah.

And eat liver.

Listen to game show music.

Cruise or Hanks?

Oh, no, I didn't finish.

Sorry.

Apex Mountain.

Oh, I guess I have a couple of Apex Mountains.

This is Apex Mountain for switchblades in movies.

Wow, there was a great Switchblade era.

Yeah.

Just guys getting knives pulled on them.

It's a great movie setup because you're like, it's dangerous, but it might not be that dangerous.

Yeah, but you can.

I can trump this.

Painting your apartment orange two weeks after your wife is murdered there.

Yeah.

Apex Mountain for that.

They'll probably move.

And guys calling their father-in-law's dad.

No question.

Cruiser Hanks.

I have Hanks.

I think it's Hanks.

Yeah, I think it's Hanks.

Craig, who'd you have?

Hanks.

Okay.

Yeah.

You need the softness.

The turn needs to be the most shocking.

Hanks.

So it would be cool, though, if we had Vincent from Collateral as Paul.

He's like, hey, homie, is that my briefcase?

I think this is the movie I wanted Hanks to make in the 2000s or 2010s.

Yeah.

We needed, let's get a little darker.

Yeah, he just never wanted to.

He always wanted to do Jimmy Stewart.

Scorsese or Spielberg, it's obviously Scorsese.

Although Spielberg's version would have been quite different.

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played?

I think he could have done a lot of things.

Very young, he could have been one of the thugs.

I think

around the master and like later in life, he could have done

He could have done the main role.

He could have been Paul in a different version of this film.

And I think he would have made a cool Achoa.

I had Kersey, but I think he would have been a good Ochoa.

Craig, you're up with a flex category.

I'm going to go with the Dan Campbell scale for holy shit.

Are they really going for this right now?

And I'm going to compare the muggers in the apartment.

It was like a flea flicker.

Yeah.

Where I didn't, I wasn't really aware of how intense this was going to be.

And the one guy walks in with the paint can.

And the first thing he does is he just spray paints a line over a painting on the wall.

And I'm like, okay.

And then he he went.

Vandalism.

And that's like Jared Goff handing it off to David Montgomery.

I'm like, oh, it's a run.

And then he goes to the other wall and it's a swastika.

And you're like, oh, no, he's flipping it back to Jared Goff.

And then

it's a 50-second.

That's a good one.

And you don't ever want to see a swastika.

The second you see a swastika, you know, things are turning.

Brought to you by Loom.

Picky nits.

The doctor just delivers the your wife didn't make it news so abruptly.

I mean, the entire movie is a nitpick, but the way that he's like, oh, your wife's dead.

But his wife is

a son-in-law first is like, your wife's gonna make it.

And

breathless, but there's almost like this weird vibe to the doctor where it's like, he's like, oh, yeah, your wife's gonna make it.

Did you guys see the Mets?

Guys, you know, like, he's like the literal doctor for like grinding out wins.

Yeah.

Right.

And he's like, oh, your wife's dead.

I'm sorry about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you see Seaver through eight, eight, two hit innings?

Yeah.

This, my wife made me pause the movie and she was, and she was, we just couldn't believe how bad the doctor was.

And her take was

maybe there wasn't enough awareness on how doctors should talk to patients yet.

And this was actually what it was like.

It was more of a realistic.

Maybe it wasn't a bad acting choice.

Oh, I would see how we did it.

In the

70s, and I would just think that there would be more bedside manner.

But I guess in a New York City hospital in the 1970s, that guy's probably seen some

yeah oh no your wife your wife's dead she died already that was your wife yeah oh my gosh she was dead when she came in yeah yeah yeah she's in the room dead if you want to go your wife's catatonic but your wife

um

not painting your apartment within a day after the graffiti uh assault murder how about just put the place up for sale and be like you know what burn the furniture but stay in a hotel

i had one more people in a restaurant watching a news conference with a police officer, like it's game seven of playoff series.

They're all like just riveted by this.

Like, really, we're supposed to believe that people aren't just eating and drinking in a restaurant.

No, I love when everybody stops.

I mean, for like in JFK, it makes sense, but in this, it would be like, you really think a New York bar would grind to a halt to watch the police commission.

This happens in Rocky, too, where you're at the bar and like the crazy.

Turn that up.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, did we really do that in the 70s?

Are we that interested in the news?

Any other nitpicks?

Um,

no, not really.

I mean, I, but we said the one was the big one was the doctor's bedside manner.

All right, we'll take a quick break and then we'll finish the categories.

Okay, before we answer the question: sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast or untouchable, I should mention there were four sequels: Deathwish 2, Deathwish 3,

1985, Deathwish 4, The Crackdown, 87, and then for some reason, 94.

Deathwish, the face of death.

They just, seven years pass.

Bronson is now

in his mid-70s, and they're like, we're running it back.

But I think it speaks to how popular the sequels were on TV from a rewatchable standpoint.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's not that expensive to make.

Yeah.

Bronson's like, I'll stand there and shoot.

You guys can make whatever movie you want around me.

He's probably not like, oh, the story's not working for me.

Let me get a rewrite of that script.

I would love to see a prestige TV prequel called The Architect.

Oh, about Paul's early days in New York City.

It's basically madmen, right?

Got this lead out of New Mexico real estate development.

It's just like an architecture firm, and like he's got a great wife and daughter.

Can I talk you into the Apple TV Prestige TV Death Wish remake?

Like, now episodes.

Jill and Hall, yeah,

yeah,

Jill and Hall.

just episode one, something bad happens.

Yes,

episode two, work trip goes to the range because the guy loves the range.

It's like, ah, that felt good.

And then we're maybe he goes to Utah, starts listening to some right-wing podcasts.

It's like, huh, this guy's have some ideas.

I like,

and then the rest of the season.

He comes back to the architecture firm.

He's like, you guys heard Rogan.

We're apparently supposed to be hunting our own food.

All the architects are like, sure, Paul.

I don't know.

I would give Deathwish a chance.

Yeah.

Apparently, you wouldn't.

No, I would.

I liked my idea too, but like, yeah, we're going to.

We can do both.

It's going to be the same idea.

Yeah.

We'll combine them.

Craig would watch Deathwish on Apple TV.

Sure.

Craig loves the studio.

Yeah.

He'd give anything a chance.

Yeah.

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harling Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in the firm?

God damn, Paul.

You're kind of freaking me out.

I'm speechless.

I guess I'm going to make sure you don't go away for a long fucking time, big boy.

But that orange paint is starting to give me some questions.

I didn't think you were going to break out Wayne for this.

I would love to see Wayne as a Choa

in this movie.

You know, like Wayne hunting this guy.

Be like, damn, you know, this guy's really taking care of some business out there.

It's making my job easier.

I had two, actually, for this.

I think Nell should be in the park at one of the scenes.

Just going.

Oh, my God.

We just see her once.

And then

the subway platform when he shoots the two guys,

Ryan Rucco.

Kirsty, beg and beg again.

Got it.

Just one Oscar who gets it.

Herbie Hancock.

Yeah.

I don't have any unanswerable questions.

It's a pretty straightforward film.

Yeah.

My question is in answer.

I mean, I think my only unanswerable question would be,

would the commissioner, district attorney, and cop all agree to suppress like

his arrests?

Well, I actually, all right, I guess I do have an unso he's got to transfer, right?

So he's got to talk to work.

Maybe you make up some story about,

yeah, you know, but he's still in the hospital with a gunshot wound.

So he's got to tell work something,

right?

Not going to be in this week.

What happened?

Appendectomy.

Like you come up with, I guess you could get through that.

Then it's like, you know what?

I really need to be transferred.

And now I have a limp.

They're like, okay, how about Chicago?

And they just kind of, that's it.

Yeah.

It's just seamlessly.

Yeah, it would have been, I honestly think it would have worked if he had been like, I got mugged.

I can't live in the city anymore.

I got to stop.

Oh, that's a good idea.

But the big question I have is with the New York City police and the media, and this is now like a circus.

Did they get him?

Did they not get him?

And then the killing stop.

But are they still covering it?

Like,

well, you know how it is.

Like after a a week, they get bored and move on to something else.

What piece of memorability would you want or not want from this movie?

I have the gun with the case that says Tupa for the case.

Yeah, I'd put that in the office.

There's a lot of really cursed items in this film.

Yeah, there's really

stuff to be like, what a cool coat.

Maybe the People Magazine?

Yeah, I would like to show a People magazine.

Coach Finstock Award, Best Life Lessons.

Bring your groceries home if you live live two blocks away.

Or I think the big part in the beginning of the film when they're like, you know, is it time to cut and run from New York City?

It's like, if you're feeling that way, maybe you should do it.

Yeah.

That's a lesson.

Best double feature choice?

Falling down?

Oh, I had the Warriors just to like put a fantastic cap on

the 70s New York experience because this is essentially the Jeff Goldblum movie.

Yeah.

You know, it's like the flip side of it.

It's a good choice.

I agree with you.

Who won the movie, bro?

Charlie.

Yeah.

All right.

Craig, I know you probably didn't like this one.

no

yeah this probably won't make the top five list at the end of the year did you see

what i was talking about with like jack lemon and sydney lamet like the bones of like a weirder movie in this i didn't it was as i was driving in today i thought i actually think this movie had the potential to be something really great um

yeah i kind of just thought it was miscast and and

stale and very two-dimensional.

And I thought the brutality of it was not redeemed by the story.

It just felt like half-assed to me.

You know what?

It's it, it's not, it's not dissimilar from Rocky in the sense that it's a movie that's franchise has kind of defined the original film now unintentionally.

Like Rocky is such like a small urban drama, and it's about human relationships, and then there's a fight at the end.

And then Rocky, all the subsequent sequels are like, it's about boxing and this guy's boxing career.

Death Wish was about, you know, like you said, like you're like, holy shit, the first hour of this movie is really disturbing.

And then like it becomes about vigilantes.

Yeah, and then it just becomes a franchise.

But it's interesting that we would almost think about Deathwish in relationship to the sequels, you know?

It's been on the list for a couple of years.

I do think there's a tweak to this movie that could work now where the complicated message around what this movie's trying to say, romanticism versus criticizing violence.

The Luigi Mangioni thing, there is like a rich person wealth tweak that you could make to this where it's like the killing of these CEO types, the United Healthcare CEO thing.

I'm not loving that.

No, I think that's an interesting twist.

You know what I mean?

Season two

and the Apple Show.

Yeah, it's the complicated, like, how do we feel about whether, you know,

these people at this level and vigilanteism in the corporate world.

That's true.

Yeah, I think.

And we're going to do a couple more 70s movies this month, but in general, the 70s is so interesting because they had all these great ideas for movies and some of them didn't land the plane and some did, but then all of them existed in the cable universe for the next 30 years like this one this is a really flawed movie that i probably have seen 20 times you think about how different the film going experience must have been for people at that time period compared to what we get now where 90 of what we see is so affirming at the end like we are made to feel good about what we just watched yeah this is almost the complete opposite of that where people seemingly were going to the movies to feel bad or to feel like their anger was being shown on screen or their depression or their anxiety was being shown on screen.

It's kind of an amazing time to talk.

I mean, I love this is one of my favorite decades.

Craig Horbeck, thank you.

Gahal and Jack, thank you as well.

And Ronic, thank you to Ronic.

Oh, and Ronnick, thank you as well.

Ringer Movies YouTube channel.

Yeah.

All these are on video, and we'll have two more 70s movies.

Death Wish 2 next week.

To be.

Are there three ones left in May or two?

What's today's date?

We have one, two, just two more after this.

Thank God.

19th, 26th.

There's a lot of campaigning going on behind the scenes for which these 70s films should be.

Really?

Yeah.

By me.

We had to do this.

Should we do a poll?

We had to

push out.

It's good.

We did it.

No, we have close encounters as possible.

Heaven can wait.

Apocalypse needs too much research.

Okay.

Rollerball is in there.

Yeah.

What was the other one we had?

Oh, I asked for Marathon Man.

Marathon Man.

And you know what?

You kind of teased once, and I don't know how serious you were.

It was all that jazz.

I thought that was one of the ones that's not available, though.

It's not available on DVD.

I don't know if it's streaming.

You're right.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we'll come back next week with one more setup.

We've never done Chinatown, have we?

We have not.

That movie's kind of a rough hang now.

Yeah.

They think not that this movie was a walk in the park.

No, I mean, like, I think it's more like the stories around it.

Yeah.

Ah, CR.

Thanks.

Good to see you.

Good to see you too.