<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Enter Dr. Paul Kersey, devoted family man-turned-ruthless vigilante in \u201cDeath Wish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Director Eli Roth (\u201cHostel\u201d) reboots the classic 1974 revenge drama with Bruce Willis taking on the lead role embodied by the late Charles Bronson in the original \u201cDeath Wish\u201d and its four \u2014 yes, four \u2014 sequels.<\/p>\n
With a shift in setting from the mean streets of 1974 New York City to the meaner streets of 2017 Chicago, Dr. Kersey dons a hoodie and vows to take down the thugs who murdered his wife (Elisabeth Shue) and raped his daughter (Camila Morrone).<\/p>\n
This $30 million remake opened Friday amid calls for gun control in the wake of a school shooting, ruminations over street brawls between white supremacists and antifa militants, debate over the Black Lives Matter movement \u2014 and focus on the Trump administration\u2019s position on each of these issues.<\/p>\n
Could there be a better \u2014 or worse \u2014 time for a new \u201cDeath Wish?\u201d<\/p>\n
When the film\u2019s trailer debuted last year, it evoked cries of \u201cfascism\u201d and worse from select film scribes. Britain\u2019s Guardian newspaper greeted the trailer by dubbing it an \u201calt-right fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such reactions aren\u2019t new for the violent spectacle that is \u201cDeath Wish,\u201d which the late Roger Ebert dubbed \u201cpropaganda for private gun ownership\u201d in 1974.<\/p>\n
But veteran comic book writer Chuck Dixon says that calling the franchise \u201cfascist\u201d doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one guy acting alone. It\u2019s the opposite of fascist,\u201d says Mr. Dixon, whose newest book \u201cLevon\u2019s War: Levon Cade Part 5\u201d extends the author\u2019s own vigilante saga.<\/p>\n
Mr. Dixon also discounts critics decrying Mr. Willis\u2019 character for donning a hoodie in the trailer. Some connected the fashion choice to Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen who was fatally shot by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012. Mr. Zimmerman, who testified that Martin\u2019s hoodie made him suspicious of the youth, was acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are looking for things to be sensitive about. Everyone wears hoodies. From a writer\u2019s standpoint, it\u2019s a natural disguise in an urban environment,\u201d the comic book writer says.<\/p>\n
The new film changes the original setting from a crime-ridden Big Apple to Chicago, currently awash with gun violence. Yet the \u201cDeath Wish\u201d remake stalled for years. At one time Sylvester Stallone was attached to the vehicle.<\/p>\n
One possible reason for the franchise\u2019s delayed reboot? The vigilante template doesn\u2019t grab the zeitgeist like it did during Bronson\u2019s first film, according to National Review\u2019s Jim Geraghty.<\/p>\n
\u201cStatistically, the average moviegoer is less likely to have experienced something like [what the Kerseys endure], and it\u2019s less of a button that filmmakers can push to get an audience to feel the tension and fear of the characters on screen,\u201d Mr. Geraghty says.<\/p>\n
Crime statistics nationwide are down despite high-profile massacres like this month\u2019s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and last year\u2019s mass assault in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead. Back in the early 1970s, fear of crime left audiences eager for Bronson\u2019s iconic character.<\/p>\n
Mr. Geraghty points to another reason for the vigilante film\u2019s decline \u2014 the modern superhero craze. These larger-than-life characters also take down criminals on their own terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Punisher, Rorschach from \u2018Watchmen\u2019 and the Crow are some that come to mind that really straddle the genre line. You could probably argue the first half of \u2018Batman Begins\u2019 fits it, too,\u201d says Mr. Geraghty, who co-hosts the pop culture podcast \u201cThe Jim and Mickey Show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Superheroes and vigilantes share something else in common. Their aim is always true, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201c[A superhero] never beats up or shoots the wrong guy and never accidentally shoots an innocent bystander,\u201d Mr. Geraghty says. \u201cHe can always eventually find the criminal kingpin\u2019s hangout. He can save the hostages. He never crosses the moral event horizon and starts killing people who we think don\u2019t deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jon Gabriel, editor in chief of the center-right site Ricochet.com, predicts that film critics are waiting to pounce on the new \u201cDeath Wish.\u201d Social media users may follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the school shooting recently and the anti-gun perspective dominating the media, it\u2019s going to be a pretty ugly reaction regardless of the content,\u201d Mr. Gabriel says. \u201cThe media is primed to be hostile to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t help that one of Mr. Roth\u2019s recent films, \u201cGreen Inferno,\u201d served up social justice warriors as the main course for the film\u2019s cannibal villains.<\/p>\n
Portraying Paul Kersey as a white man, again, also will draw some complaints, Mr. Gabriel says.<\/p>\n
That chorus began with the trailer\u2019s release. Collider.com described the teaser as a \u201cwhite knight fantasy where a white guy gets to be a famous hero by killing off criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n
One note: The villains targeted in the trailer represent a diverse array of thugs.<\/p>\n
One discussion that may spring from the film touches on a theme we see in one tragic shooting after another: Institutions fail, leaving people to their own devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all our first responders,\u201d Mr. Gabriel says.<\/p>\n
Mr. Dixon says knee jerk reactions to both the film\u2019s trailer and reimagined story reveal an issue plaguing our social media age.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe demand too much of our casual pop culture offerings. It\u2019s escapist fiction \u2026 you\u2019re escaping into the fantasy of a guy seeking justice on its own terms,\u201d he says.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Could there be a better — or worse — time for a new “Death Wish?” \u201cThe only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.\u201d \u2014 Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association \u00a0 Enter Dr. Paul Kersey, devoted family man-turned-ruthless vigilante in \u201cDeath Wish.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}