The Los Angeles Times (we read it so you don’t have to) is reporting that “The Grey” director, Joe Carnahan, is attached to write and direct a remake of Charles Bronson’s vigilante classic.

As chance would have it, less than 12 hours ago,  I watched a documentary looking back on the “Dirty Harry” films where Carnahan said, and I am paraphrasing, “I’m liberal on a lot of things but very much a law and order right-winger.”

That’s all well and good, but I doubt present-day Hollywood has the maturity to tell this story with the same courage of conviction we saw in director Michael Winner’s 1974 genre-masterpiece. For starters, Paul Kersey’s (The Mighty Charles Bronson) vigilantism is shown to work and is portrayed as a solution to a serious crime problem the ineffectual police and liberal courts can’t solve. For emphasis, there’s a wonderful scene where we see how Kersey’s actions inspire everyday people to finally fight back.

Secondly, the Kersey character (a conscientious objector during the Korean War) is made to see up close and personal the cost of his limousine liberalism and haughty pacifism. Intolerant Hollywood giving a character that kind of arc today is inconceivable. In films like the superb 2007 remake of “The Hills Have Eyes,” we’ve seen it. But if you listen to the director’s DVD commentary, you learn it was by accident.

Finally, this first entry in what would become a fantastic five film franchise isn’t like its sequels. Here, Kersey isn’t exacting revenge on the same punks who blew a hole in his family. He’s simply working through his grief and refusing to be a victim through the awesome act of cleaning up the streets and, in the end, he is not at all repentant for his actions.

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There’s something unseemly about Hollywood’s “Bucket List” genre; where characters either facing their mortality or falling in love with the standard cute, quirky girl… or some such lame thing, let loose their inner narcissist and shift into emancipating All About Me mode. The lesson being that this is how they should have lived their lives all along. Really, is “Seize the Day” a realistic gameplan for a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life? Hollywood would have you believe so, which is why a film like “Harry Brown” is such a rare breath of fresh air.

The Mighty Michael Caine plays the title character, a retired British pensioner who once served as a Marine in Northern Ireland and now resides in a massive, generic, depressing and dirty housing project called The Estate. It’s here that Harry’s life became one of precision and sameness. He wakes, dresses, eats his jelly toast and then walks to a nearby hospital to visit his ailing wife. The most convenient route for this daily commute would be through the tunnel that runs beneath a busy freeway. But that tunnel is constantly infested with a rotating menagerie of dangerous youth gangs looking for a place to hang when not out terrorizing the Estate’s residents.

Because his wife is rarely conscious, Harry’s sole company is Leonard (David Bradley), a widower and fellow pensioner. To wile away the lonely afternoons, the men enjoy quiet, leisurely pints and games of chess at the local pub.  Though the old friends are comfortable in silence, when they do speak it’s frequently about the violence they’re forced to live with. Harry prefers to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. Leonard, however, is tired of being harassed and vows to start fighting back. (more…)

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The Mighty Michael Caine as an elderly vigilante gunning down street punks after reaching his breaking point?

Oh. God. Yes.

Christian Toto has more, including a second trailer and a warning about the obvious hand-wringing we can expect from left-wing critics (but I repeat myself):

Film critics make things worse, gnashing their teeth over the fact that audiences might – gulp – be rooting for the vigilante to win the day.

If “Harry Brown” is a straight-forward vigilante film in the vein of “Death Wish” and “Taken,” you can most certainly expect the same critics who root for the undermining of America and our military in one lousy Iraq War film after another to express “thoughtful concern” over audiences rooting for the death of murderous street punks (which will hopefully be cold and violent deaths either preceded or followed by iconic tough guy lines like, say, “You failed to maintain your weapons.”) (more…)

There has been a lot written about vigilantism and conservatism in film lately. My friend David Swindle wrote a piece for American Thinker “What’s So Conservative About Vigilantism?” Big Hollywood contributor John T. Simpson wrote “Story and the Power of Conservative Themes in Film” and I wrote about vigilantism for Parcbench.com.

Conservative’s favorite vigilantes know that no justice system is perfect just like “Dirty Harry” Callahan knows there is no time for due process when people’s lives are at stake. These heroes always draw a distinct line between good and evil, and we trust them to do the right thing.

Watchmen, which was recently released on DVD, gives us a darker view of our heroes. It suggests that maybe we shouldn’t trust them, and takes a very cynical view of the fight of good versus evil. The characters are pitched as superheroes but most of them are as human as any of us.

The film takes place in a fictional 1985 where Richard Nixon is still the president. Over the years, “watchmen” had been working with the government to keep the world a safe place but eventually became outlawed. While President Nixon is trying to avoid nuclear warfare with the soviets, some “watchmen” see a world that is not worth saving anymore while others continue to operate as vigilantes. (more…)

American Movie Classics is marking the 35th anniversary of the release of Death Wish, the controversial and highly influential 1974 film featuring Charles Bronson as a liberal architect in New York City who becomes a vigilante after a group of thugs murder his wife and rape his daughter.

The film was highly successful with audiences, making Bronson a big star and inspiring several sequels. Critics hated it.

Both reactions were caused by the same thing: the film’s uncompromising truthfulness. Death Wish marked the death of liberal illusions about crime and punishment: the idea that crime is caused by disadvantageous social environments and that the solution is to pour even more taxpayer money into bad neighborhoods in an attempt to buy submission from the poorer elements of society.

Death Wish showed that process to be an absurd sham. The film, based on a novel by Brian Garfield, clearly showed that giving in to such political extortion was making social conditions worse and exacerbating the nation’s already terrible crime problem.

Death Wish and its sequels refused to sugarcoat the villainy of the criminals the architect Paul Kersey pursues, nor did it state that he was justified in what he was doing. It simply showed the characters doing what they were inclined to do, making their choices and following the consequences. Such truth was impossible for Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, and other elitist critics of the time to stomach.

As direct and truthful as Death Wish is, it is not simplistic or political, despite the ravings of critics at the time. It is a story that was all too plausible, and the characterizations and situations were accurately and insightfully portrayed.

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