Review: Cold Sweat - 1970

Cold Sweat

Director: Terence Young

1970

Action/Thriller

Joe Martin hasn’t always been the quiet man he is today. He hasn’t always had a boat and made a living taking tourists out on fishing trips. He hasn’t always had a wife and a twelve year old stepdaughter. Once upon a time he was in the military and has an even more complicated story than he wish to tell his wife. It turns out that he was one of four who escaped from a prison and that someone got killed during the escape. Joe, who didn’t want anything to do with the others violence fled the scene and let the other take the fall. Now they’re back with a vengeance and blackmail him into helping them with a heroin trade. Now he got no choice as his wife and daughter life are at stake.

Terence Young might be most known for the Bond films Dr. No and From Russia With Love and that ought to count for something. I mean, there is obviously ability in making movies there. In my opinion Dr. No might be the best Bond film of all times so you’d understand if I have high hopes for this one! And I actually saw it some years ago thiking it was a very good Bronson film! I told you already that me and a couple of friends of mine made it out business to see as many movies starring Charles Bronson as we could find, but I think this was one of those that we didn’t find for rental. This was shown on Swedish TV though. That’s how I remember it anyway.

I remember it as one of the better ones and considering we saw thirty or so of them that’s pretty good. Since I opened the shrine I made it my business to watch all of them again, and preferably more of them. There are different ways to get them these days, making it much easier to get. In short, we have the internet! Therefore I was a bit disappointed by this! It’s not a bad film in any way, but there is not so much of Charles Bronson in it. Liv Ullman steals the show totally actor wise (even though her English pronunciations are pretty bad) and James Mason is really good too! There are a few other supporting cast as well but I won’t get into them here. Except for Jill Ireland as a Hippie of course… All great actors!

But I can only take so much of case chases! I have a hard time watching the very long scene where Joe (Bronson) drives the serpentines with the police at his heals. I can’t stand the engine sound and can’t stand that the tires squeal at every turn. It doesn’t matter if there’s asphalt or sand. Plus that it’s very sloppy made. There are supposed to be three people in the car but at times I can only see the stunt driver. I might not have 20-20 vision but even if there in fact are three people (or dummies or whatever) and I don’t see it it’s still a failure!

And then there is the thing of the pace. It’s not very well edited. Much of the main suspense centers around Bronsons need to make it in time by car. But the scenes are so slow and dull that the fast driving doesn’t really matter, it’s still boring. So… Great acting and basically a great storyline with kidnapping, blackmailing and revenge but sloppy made – and not enough of Bronson…

6/10

Review: Raid on Entebbe - 1976

Raid on Entebbe

Director: Irvin Kershner

1976

Drama/Action

A plane gets hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. After a few course changes they finally end up in Uganda. They demand that Israel comply and release some fifty imprisoned freedom fighters. Some of them are held in other countries than Israel of course but their main opponent remains to be Israel. Being in Uganda president Idi Amin seems to be protecting the hijackers. He claims to be doing everything he can for the hostages but his reasons are uncertain. About half of the hostages are released however and Idi Amin claims that it’s he doing, that he negotiated with the hijackers himself. Those who remain are all Jews and most of them residents of Israel. So what is Israel going to do about it? The official policy is not to negotiate with terrorists at all. They want the citizens back but are the price of letting all the “freedom fighters” out of prison – the who is who of terrorism – too high of a price to pay? A military action is initiated – operation Thunderbolt – the hostages are to be freed by force!

This is one of those “lost” Charles Bronson films. I may have been looking at all the wrong places but I haven’t been able to find in on DVD until quite recently. I’m glad it’s been released since it’s a real gem when it comes to movies made for TV. There are only a handful of them that reach the standard of “real” movies. There is Citizen X, this one and The Park is Mine but not so many more. I guarantee that I have forgotten some of them now but the general idea is that there aren’t many of them that reach this level of quality!

To be honest, Charles Bronson isn’t in it very much. He certainly does not have a major part, not even one of the bigger supporting parts. His role is quite small actually. And there are enough other stars to be sure too. There are people like Peter Finch, Martin Balsam, Horst Buchholz, John Saxon, Robert Loggia, James Woods and Yaphet Kotto to name a few. The latter’s interpretation of Idi Amin is fantastic. This might very well be Yaphet Kottos best performance of all time!

Apparently this is based on true events, I’m not too familiar with them but it makes a lot of sense. It seems pretty legit and as far as I’ve been able to dig the deaths of the named hostages and soldiers seems to be correct. One thing that bugs me though is that the lives of the higher ranking officers always seem to be worth more than the general soldiers, the privates. This isn’t anything that’s unique for this movie of course; it’s almost always portrayed that way. We have the officers and we have the cannon fodder. This might be historically correct in this case (no, I won’t get into details) but it still bothers me. I realize that it doesn’t have anything to do with the film itself really but I can’t help myself. This is the only negative thing I have to say about it!

So, this is a film very close to perfection. I’m kind of split when I’m about to grade it. Should I consider my problem with the ranking issues as such a major thing that I let it influence my grading of the whole movie or not? I really don’t know. It’s certainly an aspect of things that makes the viewing experience somewhat annoying. Well… I’d give this one…:

9/10

Review: Death Hunt - 1981

Death Hunt

Director: Peter R. Hunt

1981

Action

Johnson, an unsocial Trapper interrupts a dogfight and buys one of –almost dead – dogs against the owners will. He claims that the animal could render him more that the measly $200 but Johnson feels sorry for the dog and insists on the deal. The former dog owner complaint at the sheriff’s office but the sheriff tells him that he won’t do anything about it. Frustrated the dog owner leaves but soon starts the rumor that Johnson is in fact “the mad trapper” knows for killing fellow trappers and stealing their gold teath. The sheriff now has no other choice than to bring Johnson in. He goes to his lone cabin but Johnson won’t hear of it. He’d rather die than to give in. Knowing where the accusations might end he flees and the hunt for him begins.

Studio S Entertainment released this in Sweden a couple of years ago and I think that many of my fellow Swedes might have caught their first glimpse at it for that reason. Not the most dedicated Bronson- or cult film fans of course but the general public. But on the other hand the general public might have no interest in this. I on the other hand find it very satisfying!

The first time I saw it was in my youth when my friends and I rented all the Bronson movies we could find. I’ve liked it since then but it was a long time since I saw it prior to the review. It never occurred to me that it was so similar to First Blood! In both movies a person with extreme survival skills are haunted, the audience sympathies lies with the hunted person as he has done nothing wrong really, he only wants to be left alone. There is also mutual respect between the hunter and the hunted in both movies. The environment is different of course; this takes place in a winter landscape and First Blood in the jungle like forest where John Rambo fights of his hunters.

Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson are the perfect cast in this film. They both seen to be just the part they are playing and the complete each other perfectly. Charles Bronson is the lone trapper who a suspected killer and Lee Marvin is the police official who’d rather not go after the trapper at all. But he must do so since it’s required by his job. There you have another similarity, the political one. When things escalates and the police can’t catch the fugitive the general public in both movies makes things worse looking for the reward money. It becomes more or less a movie where the money is more important than justice and right or wrong. But on the other hand, this is everyday life in reality – the universe outside the movie. It’s the perfect reflection of the real world really.

The trapper must do what he must to survive, which means that he seems more and more guilty to the crime that he did not commit. It’s kind of a frightening thought! People die because they just couldn’t leave him alone. The police know better but the general public don’t, they are short minded and only in it for the money, the reward. Do you recognize it from somewhere around you? The general masses don’t think, they just react on instinct no matter what the consequences are!

This is based on true events which indeed make it more frightening. I’m not surprised really, I just hope that mankind will learn somewhere along the line and evolves beyond the narrow minded thinking in the future. The hunt is an honest one until the general masses are blinded by the reward. It becomes a… death hunt!

7/10

Review: Death Wish - 1974

Death Wish

Director: Michael Winner

1974

Drama/Action/Thriller

When Paul Kerseys wife and daughter gets attacked in their home, the wife killed and the daughter raped and left mentally disturbed, he takes the law into his own hands and become a one man vigilante army. He tests himself, where are his limits, can he actually withstand a mugger armed with a knife or a gun? At first he has grave problems with the violence but after a while he arms himself with a gun and goes out to provoke the scum of New York to attack him. He then shoots them down without mercy!

I first saw this years ago during the raids to my local video stores that I mentioned in an earlier review. This must be one of the best know film with Charles Bronson and most defiantly THE vigilante film! As I recall it  I didn’t think it was such a big of a deal back then but when I saw it again yesterday, the first time in fifteen or twenty years I realized how much to the point it really is. It’s not the violence that makes the movie, not the action. But rather the cover up. When Paul Kersey (Bronson) has shot several victims the police finds out who he is, mind you it’s done by some pretty far fetched methods, and the try to cover it up. They don’t want him to be arrested and definitely not killed. They don’t want a martyr.

Because if they catch him they will trigger even more vigilantes to start defending themselves i.e. killing bad guys, commit murder. The police must uphold the law but on the other hand, he gets rid of some of the scum that the police will never catch and the crime rate goes down during his reign of the dark night streets. Instead they try to force him to stop and get out of New York. A bit like an old western and there’s even a comment about it in the dialog. Kersey asks if he should be gone before sundown. Brilliant line really.

The acting is really nice and the direction is swell. I can’t say that it needs any improvement on those matters. It does feel a little bit dated though and it might have past it’s expiring date when it comes to the story. There are some many films which are more explicit nowadays and the political satire may have become obsolete, I don’t know. But on the other hand, the debate of gun control is still a pretty big issue as I understand it so maybe it’s still pretty accurate after all. In this film the scale turns from pacifism to quite the opposite when the need arise. It’s all about revenge and how people might think in a situation like that. I don’t think any of us would think rational if this happened to us. Yet this is what Paul Kersey seems to do. His plan is thought through, at least up to a point and he doesn’t panic once he got the hang of it.

It might not have the most fantastic story of all the Charles Bronson movies but it’s pretty realistic and if you look fast you’ll see Jeff Goldblum as a bad guy in the very beginning of the film. I can’t say that he’s fantastic or anything but this was his debut. That ought to count for something I think.

8/10

Review: Mr. Majestyk - 1974

Mr. Majestyk

Director: Richard Fleischer

1974

Action

The only thing Mr. Majestyk really cares about is his melons. The only thing on his mind is to harvest them and do it in his own righteous way. He doesn’t like it when other try to force him to hire help or when they oppress the Mexican minorities. He communicates his opinions to the local thugs i.e. with violence. This in turn means that he’s now has an assault charge to sort out with the police. They claim that he’s beaten a man with a rifle but the truth is that it in fact was the guy own rifle and that it only seconds earlier was pointed at Mr. Majestyk! The police doesn’t believe him of course and he’s soon on a prison transport together with a infamous thug and contract killer. The transport krasches but Mr. Majestyk doesn’t help the gangster, instead he plans to get him taken in by the police again. After all, the most impostant thing is to harvest the melons…. This makes the thug hate him at such a level that he will stop at nothing to get him killed! But Mr. Majestyk is not an easy target…

Many, many years ago, before it became old-fashioned to rent movies in physical stores, my local stores was raided by me and my friends in order to get all the films staring or co-staring Charles Bronson. Everything was of interest so after a while there was nothing left to see. I would like to say that I saw millions of Bronsons films during this period but thirty or forty is more truthful! About the same time I also saw Swamp Thing or possible it’s sequel Return of the Swamp Thing where a you girl, possible Heather Locklear, was threatened by some bad guys. She told them that the police was on their way, The CIA, FBI and… CHARLES BRONSON!! He was also the ultimate weapon in a radio sketch during that time. It was a comedy radio show called Sextio Sekunda Minuter where the Russian and American leaders brags about their weapons. They tried to scare each other with their fantastic arsenals. They threatened each other with double nuclear bombs and all kind of exaggerated weaponry until the American leader won the argument by claiming he would send in CHARLES BRONSON!

The reputation he had was about his own personal being, not the characters he portrayed in the movies. This release has a couple of great quotes I’d like to add to that conclusion. For instance, Don’t Fuck with Bronson. It says a lot about this actor. I wonder if it would be just to call him  the king of the revenge movies? I think you could say that! Loads of movies with a talent that forgives the sole impression on his face. You can’t fail!

This is a really tough film and Charles Bronson makes it even tougher. It’s rumored that Clint Eastwood initially was to play the leading part but I don’t think that would have been as good and tough as this is. Clint is tough to be sure, but not as tough as Brosnon! The storyline is pretty stupid. But that’s to be expected from a revenge film like this. They’re almost always the same. That the thug would be so stupid and proud that he would seek revenge at all costs is absurd. It’s also far fetched that Mr.Majestyk should be so manipulative that he could outsmart the whole organization of criminals.

But essentially I have no problem with that. We want our hero to succeed and we really don’t care what character his in. When Bronson did these movies, hi did them with himself as a main character. I mean that it’s BRONSON we like to see, we don’t really care what his characters name is and if he grow melons for a living or not. Charles Bronson IS the ultimate weapon!

8/10