The delightfully horrible Death Wish III was on television last night and I'm pleased to report that its pure awfulness just gets better and better with age. This film is so utterly preposterous on so many levels, it should firmly reside in the genre of "bad cop fantasy." Charles Bronson sleepwalks through his reprised role of vigilante Paul Kersey, squinting, muttering barely audible one liners, and for the last 30 minutes of the film, shooting whatever moves. But mostly squinting. Underrated character Ed Lauter shows up to singlehandedly tear the Bill of Rights to shreds and squish cockroaches while uttering his catchphrase "I hate cockroaches!" And for some inexplicable reason, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page scored the soundtrack, which sounds a lot like someone falling asleep on the keys of 1980s Casio keyboard with the reverb set to "ALL THE REVERBS!" The film does deserve some credit, however, for its progressive depiction of a gang of thugs that is more diverse than the United Nations. All in all, this film from 1985 is a high water mark in bad filmmaking and you should stop what you are doing right now to go watch it.
