The Year of Cannon: Going Bananas! (1988)

This is actually translates to 'You've Been Warned.'

I hope all are having a good Thanksgiving holiday weekend. May you be full of stuffing, pie, and awkward conversations about politics with distant family members. I figured to celebrate the season, I would do two things: Share with you a video of a Macy's Day Parade float fail, and carve into the turkey that is Cannon's Going Bananas.

First, the day Barney died.

Oh the purple humanity!

Second, the day I died a little while watching Going Bananas.

Oh my sanity!

The story of Going Bananas is that Ben (David Mendenhall, who we just talked about in our episode about Overthe Top) is the son of  a US senator and has been sent on a vacation without the rest of his family to Africa. Accompanying him is 'Bad Bad' Joe (Dom DeLuise), who is Ben's guardian and is always anxious about every single thing... so pretty much why you hire Dom DeLuise to be in your film. As soon as they hit the mainland, they are met by Mozambo (Jimmie Walker) their guide. David, who is the shot caller on the trip no matter how many times Joe tries to course correct, wants to go to see the wilds of Africa and Mozambo is more than happy to take this young child out into harm's way without any hesitation.

The first 1/3 of the film plays out like an attempt at a Disney-esque travelogue with David commenting on all the wild life they see and a cut away to every piece of stock footage that Cannon can find showing African animals. It becomes a loop of David asking Mozambo to stop the vehicle, Joe saying they shouldn't but they do, David and Mozambo walk off camera and talk over stock footage of giraffes or something, and Joe trying to nap or have lunch and being interrupted by an elephant or a lion. Joe freaks out, Mozambo and David laugh, and no one questions the reality that Dom DeLuise was inches away from a live lion and could have been eaten at any time. Hilarity!

This is the first time they actually learn what the movie is supposed to be about.

Soon, David sees a bunch of chimpanzees and wants to go see them. Mozambo and David get close enough to startle all of them and cause them to flee, except for one that gets stuck in some branches. David feels bad for this animal and frees it. Mozambo says they need to go, and David leaves the recently freed chimp to go do whatever chimps do (fun fact: chimpanzees are actually really into accounting and book keeping. This is why the rest of the animal kingdom shuns them). The chimp decides that he is going to follow them back to their vehicle and hitches a ride, as he has taken a shine to David. One thing leads to another, and the chimp causes a ruckus that leads to them crashing into a tree and Joe losing a tooth. He insists that they find a dentist. Mozambo has a uncle that can do it. I won't go into many details here, but they end up at village that is not handled with any sense of cultural sensitivity. Hilarity!

Later, they leave the wilds and head back to the town they had first made landfall in, at first not realizing that the chimp had stowed away again. Joe is aware that taking a wild animal, even if they weren't aware of it, is a crime and they could get in big trouble. David doesn't care and names the chimp... Bonzo.

Kids just love 37 year old (at that time) Ronald Reagan film references.  

Let's stop and talk about 'Bonzo' for a moment. There is a bit in the wonderful documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films in which the story is told about Menaham Golan meeting Clyde the Orangutan (real name Manis), star of Every Which Way but Loose. The story goes that Menaham was pitching a film project involving Manis to Manis, not his handler. People in the room really believe Menaham was trying to sell Manis on the idea of doing a family film for Cannon. The story goes that film was green lit and rushed into production and they tried to use an actual primate to play the role of Bonzo, but that it bit actor David Mendenhall, so they had come up with another solution:

You know that guy in the suit wants to bite him too. 

They put an actor in a primate costume and thus the stuff of nightmares was born. The photo doesn't really do it justice but when Bonzo is in motion it is just terrible. Once I learned that it was Deep Roy in the suit, I felt really bad for him for being saddled with a such a thankless job of trying to make this train wreck of a film entertaining, but it didn't make me hate Bozno the character any less. His antics were made worse when they would add cartoon sound effects to everything. We understand this film is supposed to be a romp, we don't need Yoink! and Bonk! noises every three seconds. We also don't need every cast member to say the name Bonzo every other word. Hilarity!

Meanwhile, there is another plot thread involving Captain Mackintosh (Herbet Lom, from Steve's favoriteCannon film so far this year, King Solomon's Mines), who appears to be in charge of the territory. It isn't made clear but it appears the last vestiges of European colonialism is still in effect here and it doesn't sit well with me how he orders around all of the African locals to do his policing. This is played for laughs and it tries to go for a Keystone Cops or Three Stooges vibe but it falls flat, surprising no one. Mackintosh is crooked and is looking to get paid off to deliver unique animals to a circus that is setup just outside of town. The circus owner is looking for the next big thing that will revitalize his circus. We never know why a circus that is in dire financial straits would be in a what appears to be a third world African nation, but Going Bananas can't be bothered to ask that legitimate question. It has bigger things on its mind, like what if Bonzo can understand English and speak it?! Hilarity!

After a very slapsticky scene in a restaurant in which Joe decides that the best way to hide Bonzo is to dress him in drag and have him sit with them while they dine that soon devolves into a brawl and cakes in faces, Mackintosh realizes that Bonzo really is a special kind of chimp and would pull big money from the broke ass circus...

...And wigs.

*YOINK! SCREAM! SLIDE WHISTLE!*

We learn that Bonzo not only understands English but can speak it as well! And what is his favorite two words? Banana and David. He says them almost as much as everyone else says his name. David, believing correctly that Mackintosh wants to capture Bonzo, escape back to the wild where Bonzo lived. Joe and Mozambo freak out and go looking for David. The movie then teaches us the important lesson: young teenage boys won't survive long with a talking primate in the wild. This is valuable information we all need to know. David, while swinging on vines with Bonzo, wants to 'touch hands' and falls down into a crevice that happens to be full of scorpions. Bonzo eventually saves David by beating the every loving shit out of the scorpions (honestly, I don't think those were fake props that Deep Roy was smashing... maybe he was getting his frustrations over the life decisions that lead him to this moment out) but can't seem to rouse David from his lethargic state. David would have likely died had he not have been found by Joe and Mozambo. Goddamit. The film could have been over right then.

David is taken to a hospital. Bonzo follows unbeknownst to David and the others. Mackintosh finds David and by default Bonzo and captures him. Bonzo is then handed off to the circus and is branded the 8^th wonder of the world as he can talk. David and company aren't aware of Bonzo's capture and have a deadline to get back to the ship to go home.... but wait! There is a parade going through the town advertising the circus. David, Joe, and Mozambo decide they have time to go to the circus before the boat leaves. Once there, they realize to their horror, that Bonzo is the main attraction. They decide that they need to bust the chimp out and come up with the smartest plan in order to do so: they beat up some clowns and dress up like them so that they can get close enough to Bonzo to unshackle him. Hilarity ensues as that does go quite to plan and you end up with an extended sequence involving trapeze artists and someone made up to look like Dom DeLuise flipping and flying through the air. Again, a small credit to this film, the circus work was done by actual professionals and that looked good.

They all escape and run out to a prop driven bi-plane, Bonso gets in the pilot's seat because now that he has mastered the English language, he understands the complexities of manned flight, and they escape with Bonzo buzzing the circus in chaos and the bad guys like he is Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Airtime for Bonzo!

David has to say goodbye to Bonzo because the reality of bringing a large wild animal on a prolonged boat ride back to the United States is not a good one, but that changes when Mackintosh makes one last ditch effort to capture Bonzo. He makes a leap of safety to the boat and then its okay for him to go with David. Hooray? Let's ignore Mozambo is still on the dock and will likely be arrested for the whole circus thing and for running away from the police. But hey, the white people and the sassy talking primate are safe and that's all that matters.

Going Bananas is not a good film and I don't think it was striving to be. It was aiming very low at what is supposed to pass for family entertainment and it doesn't even clear that bar. What was I expecting? That's a fair question and I probably already had a chi(m)p on my shoulder for this thing before I even started watching it. I knew I wasn't going to like it but I was hoping for something that became pure insanity like Mac and Me. It never quite... goes bananas. I will see myself out.

So instead of beating the super dead horse that is this film any further, let's take a look at five moments in film/TV that involve an actor in an animal suit that are more fun than Bonzo:

5.) Left Shark from Super Bowl XLIX

If there was a ever a thing I wanted in my life, it would to be dressed in a large shark costume on one of the world's largest stages and just... do whatever I wanted to. You do you, Left Shark.

4.) Sudden Death Mascot Fight

Sudden Death is great bad Jean Claude Van-Damme film and this is the greatest moment of it. He fights a bad guy dressed up as the Pittsburgh Penguin's mascot, Iceberg. Stop reading and watch this right now.

3.) Ace Ventura Rhino Birth

I haven't revisited Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls in a very long while, but this moment has been forever burned into my brain and I laugh every time I watch it. 

2. ) Nic Cage Bear Punch

The remake of The Wicker Man is not good, but it is batshit crazy. I want to believe that Nic Cage had a clause in his contract that he got to do this. I would watch a whole film of him dressed up as various animals punching people. Hollywood, there is your license to print money.

1.) Bobcat Goldthwait as Godzilla

One Crazy Summer is a very fun and silly movie and underrated. If you haven't seen it, you must seek it out. One of my favorite moments is when Bobcat Goldthwait tries on a Godzilla suit and can't get it off. The escalating problems resulting from this gets funnier, and his response to them, as it goes along.

Parting Cannon Shots

Is this better or worse than The Apple? 

Worse. The Apple was bad but fun and tried to do something. This was bad and tired. I feel bad for Dom DeLuise, Jimmie Walker, and Deep Roy. They all deserved better than this. 

The Menaham Index: 

100%. This is a collision of all his worst tendencies: Not a thought out plot, a gimmick that will attract the kids that is nightmare fuel, comedy that misses all the marks, getting some known Hollywood B level people in order to slap their name on the poster, and a lot of inadvertent (to him anyway) racism. All you needed was terrorist plot with rocket launchers and a tossed off  underwritten female love interest and it would have been almost the perfect Cannon film. 

Would I recommend this film to anyone?

No. 

And here you thought there wouldn't be any gifs in this post. 

If you want to watch Going Bananas after my staunch anti-recommendation, you can find it here:

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The Year of Cannon: Death Wish V: The Face of Death! (1994)

No Budget. No Enthusiasm. No Grenade Launchers. No Fun.

This post is a bit of cheat. Death Wish V: The Face of Death came out in 1994 and was after the collapse of Cannon as we have come to understand it during our yearlong deep dive into it on Invasion of the Podcast. The film was actually distributed by Trimark Pictures (which had its own dubious line up of releases) and now rests with MGM. Technically this isn't a 'true' Cannon film and would not normally be considered when reviewing their weird library, however, I decided to cover it for two reasons: 1.) Cannon didn't actually produce the first Death Wish film, so I feel like there is a bit of symmetry to this. And, 2.) I have already watched the first four films, and I figured I was this close to the end, I might as well run out the series.

Does Death Wish V return to its original vision of a man forced to find justice on his own(or so he convinces himself) or does it continue down the cartoonish path of distasteful and tone deaf violence?

Does Charles Bronson, in his last theatrically released film, summon more than professional boredom to get through til the end of film without actually yawning while delivering his lines? I think we can all assume the answers to those questions, so let's ride this thing out to the sunset and hope to enjoy it as we go.

Did you see that they used a shot of the opening credits in the trailer? 

It's like that no one was paying attention to any portion of the production process. 

Death Wish V: Deathface picks up 7 years after the last film and with Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson, if it isn't obvious by now) walking away scott-free from the cops after GRENADE LAUNCHING A PERSON TO DEATH (for the second time, mind you). He has moved from the west coast back to New York because evidently there is like a 10 year statute of limitations to being a murder crazy vigilante the must have passed. He is yet again in a relationship with a younger woman. To be fair, the actress playing her is 40... Bronson is 73, though. Old habits die hard, right?

Let's talk about Old Man Bronson for a bit here. I don't think he has ever looked young. Here he is at age 40, in a 1961 episode of the Twilight Zone:

Seen here all fancied up in his Formal Flintsone attire. 

He looks like how Josh Brolin looks at age 50 when he is Cable.

Okay, I get it. I will keep my mouth shut. I will never look as good as either of you no matter what age I am.

Bronson was just born old, and that is perfectly okay. He always had a great look about him and he is forever burned into cinema history as a badass. There does come a point where old is too old for the lead in what is supposed to be an action film, at least the kind that Bronson was known for:

Face Death.

I will be honest, I felt a little sad seeing him look this old in what would be his last theatrically released film. I still would be scared to be alone with him if he felt that I slighted him, but maybe it was time to hang it up. No one should be 73 doing the 5^th film in a bloody action franchise that started with one message and is now a distorted shadow of its former self...

Look it up, it's true. 

Well, shit. Never mind. Back to Death Wish 5: Wishing 4 Death.

Kersey's new lady, Olivia (Lesley-Anne Down) is a fancy high end fashion designer in NYC and has a private runaway to show off her most recent creations and a sweat shop style factory just below it make the merchandise. It doesn't make any sense and it is very easy to see that seats around the runway are folding chairs and that the sheet metal interior looks like an early Chipotle.

I will have a burrito bowl and a sexy bald mannequin for dine-in, thanks. 

Kersey is there to support the launch of her new line and we learn that she has a young daughter, Chelsea (Erica Fairfield) and that she loves Paul. We eventually find out that Paul has been placed into witness protection by the government for... reasons?... and that he is now a professor of architecture and has the government assigned fake identity of... Paul. Pretty good life, nothing can possibly go wrong here.

In steps Olivia's ex-husband and father of Chelsea, Tommy O'Shea, played by the usually wonderful Michael Parks. I think the only notes that were given to him here were 'we don't have the budget to give you any true depth, just turn 'being a racist abusive organized crime guy' up to 11, no up to 12, no up to a bajillion.

He looks like if someone was making a knock of Breaking Bad. 'Oh, and his name will be Gregory Gray!' 

Turns out, Tommy, wasn't too keen on Olivia leaving him and taking their daughter, so he has slowly but surely worked his way into her garment designing business. He is going to force Olivia back to him one way or another. How do we know that Tommy is truly a piece of shit? Blah, blah, blah, attack some floor manager guy with a industrial cutting tool after threatening him with a vat of industrial acid, burn an African American guy's hands with a steam press and make racist comments the entire time, you get it. Tommy and his three thugs are the worst of the worst. We know where this is going to go. Tommy has to light the Kersey's fuse somehow or there wouldn't be a movie. So how does that happen?

Just as Kersey is going to finally commit to Olivia and propose to her while they are out at a nice dinner, she goes to the rest room and is assaulted by one of Tommy's men while they are dressed in drag. It really makes no sense as to why the need for him to be in drag. I think it was to try and make it all seem more perverse and weird but it just felt flat and tone deaf, a feeling that would permeate the entirety of this film. It leaves Olivia's face disfigured and sets Kersey on an all too familiar path.

Meanwhile, Tommy gets his men to take care of the garment factory manager that went to the cops. I don't think physics work this way.

Who ordered the turnover? 

Kersey tries to get law enforcement to help, a handful knows of his vigilante past, and they convince Olivia to testify against Tommy. Turns out Tommy has an inside man and knows this is going to happen, so they break into Olivia's place and kill her. As Tommy has an airtight alibi, he isn't charged and he can take legal custody of Chelsea, who just wants to live with Paul.

Tommy has a Death Wish.... Part V. Fuse F*cking lit.

Let's take quick stock of what happens to the women that are around Paul Kersey before we move on.

• Death Wish: Kersey's wife is beaten to death in their apartment while their daughter is raped.
• Death Wish 2: Kersey's housekeeper is beaten and raped. His daughter, who is pretty much catatonic after the events of the first film, is raped again and then jumps out of the second story window of a warehouse and dies by getting impaled on a iron fence stake. His new girlfriend eventually learns about his vigilante doings and breaks off their engagement.
• Death Wish 3: Kersey's new new girlfriend is knocked out in her car and pushed downhill into oncoming traffic and causes the car to explode.
• Death Wish 4: The Crackdown: Kersey's new new new girlfriend's daughter dies to a crack cocaine overdose and later the new new new girlfriend is shot in the back while running to Paul.

Moral of the story: Paul Kersey has a worse track record with families and girlfriends than Terry O'Quinnin in the Stepfather series. Who knew that it was the women around him that had the actual death wish?

So do you think that maybe, just maybe, we might get that moment of self reflection from Paul Kersey in which he ponders the circumstances in his life that always brings him back to the loss of loved ones around him and the need to meter out justice on his own, one bullet at a time? If you believed that, then you have not been paying attention to the arc of the series to this point, which really isn't so much an arc as as it is a sharp and steady descent into meanness and meaninglessness. Oh, Death Wish V: I'm Dreaming of a Death Wishmas tries to convince you that it is a more meditative piece with not one, but two, segments in which we have Charles Bronson drive around aimlessly or unlock his wall safe to access his gun while clips of audio from the previous scenes play over top. It is trying to apply depth to a film incapable of having any at all. Or maybe the film knew people were bored and weren't paying attention and had to remind them of what just had happened.

I was one of those people. I honestly had to go take a nap in the middle of watching this film. The nap was glorious, btw.

Dr. Steve Brule always knows what you need. For your health!

Once awake and refreshed, I had to give the film a smidge of credit, though in a backhanded way. It initially limited Kersey to just his own handgun. That felt like a callback to the original film before everything went off the rails. He didn't have a full Chuck Norris level arsenal at his disposal and that felt more appropriate. This is likely due to the low budget and maybe I am reading too much into it. Besides. He had other weapons at his disposal.

He figured out one of Tommy's goon's schedules and waited for him to show up to a family owned Italian restaurant. Once the goon was there, Kersey sprinkled arsenic on his canoli. That sequence is boring and stupid, so it is not gif worthy. The newspaper headline right after is pretty great though:

'Death by Dessert' would have been more thematically appropriate for the franchise though.  

Word gets around to Tommy that someone is attacking his men. How this is delivered to him is... interesting.

Church is no place for a child!

Kersey then stakes out the goon that assaulted Olivia and cut her face up. He figures out the guy is paranoid and has security all over his gated home. Kersey then comes up with the obvious solution:

Want to play soccer but not be bothered with kicking it and stuff? I got your covered. 

Well all know what to do with a remote controlled soccer ball, right?

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tommy knows that Kersey is coming for him and decides to use Chelsea as bait to draw him out to the garment factory/fashion runway/Chipotle. Tommy has approximately 3 hired guns left and Kersey makes short work of two of them. He keeps the third alive for information. The way he accomplishes this is probably the best part of this film.

Well that just about wraps it up. 

Soon Kersey and Tommy have a showdown and Tommy surprisingly doesn't get grenade launched to death. He ends up backing into the vat of industrial acid that was teased at that beginning of the film. The good cop that knows that Kersey is the vigilante let's him walk free again. With no regard to Chelsea and her safety, or the trauma that must exist in his own head afeter losing people close to him over and over again, Kersey turns his back on the cop and says 'Hey Lieutenant, if you need any help, give me a call.' Freeze fame, credits.

I honestly didn't know what to expect out of Death Wish V: Death Harder, but it ended up not being much of anything at all, which is somehow worse than the sins the series committed with 3 and 4 in raising the violence to cartoonish levels with no true consequences to Paul Kersey. At least that was something you could sit around with friends and have a laugh at while understanding that the films completely lost any semblance of credibility or reason and to just have fun with them. This was just dull, mean, and meandering. For a film series with death in its name, the last portion felt dead on arrival.

So that's it for the Death Wish series, I guess? Well aside from the unofficial remake, and the officialremake, and the other unofficial unofficial remake. If you want a film about an everyday guy that has been pushed into seeking out justice on his own and how messy and personally complicated it can be, may I recommend Jeremy Saulnier's 2013 film, Blue Ruin. It shows what the cost of revenge is and it has real consequences.

I am glad that I did run the series of Death Wish films because I do love Charles Bronson, and I had not seen any of them until this year. There are some fun moments to be had in them, for sure. I just wish, pun intended I guess, that there had been more substance to the man behind the gun.

Parting Cannon Shots

Is this better or worse than The Apple?

This is worse than The Apple. At least The Apple has some life to it. I would rather sit through that very confusing musical with no true ending than what this slog again.

The Menahem Index: 

20% Just because his name is still attached as a producer. I don't think he got much say in what happened, and I don't think that would have the any better or worse anyway. 

Would I recommend this film to anyone? 

Only if you are a completest like me. Otherwise, this is not a film I would recommend to anyone as a standalone watch. 

If you do happen to want to want to watch the film, it is up in its entirety on Daily Motion, you can check it out here. 

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The Year of Cannon: Death Wish 4: The Crackdown! (1987)

Das Wish is AUGE!

I know, I know. I fell on my keys after having a pretty good track record of writing up a blog post once a month. I hope to get back on track as I made a promise to myself that I would write a post for every 'Year of' film that we do. I know you all were going through 'badly worded and spelled thoughts about movies most no one cares about' withdrawals. Well, I am here to bring that fabulous sugar smack back to your eyes and brains. Let's see if Charles Bronson will actually give a shit about the Cannon film he is in this time with my look at Death Wish 4: The Crackdown

Death Wish 4: WISH HARDER

When we last left Paul Kersey, aka Charles Bronson, at the end of Death Wish 3, he had turned a few New York City blocks into his own bombed out hellscape as he waged a one man war on a street gang that was pushing around the locals. You would think there would be a lot of questions from local and national authorities of what the hell exactly went on as there were rocket launchers used by private citizens, but nope, the local cops looked the other way and gave Kersey a head start out of town.

When we watched Death Wish 3 for the show, I knew there were two more films in the series but wasn't sure where they could take the series next as very quickly morphed from a meditative piece about the about what would drive a regular person to take the law into their own hands and the price it costs in the first film (with Paul Kersey being visibly shaken and having to throw up after the first time he shot someone), to him making the hunt for justice more personal in the second film, to a straight up Warner Brothers-esque cartoon about gang violence and the many ways Kersey could kill the gang members. Where could 4 go where the first three whiplashed to and fro from?

Oddly enough, somewhere in the middle. Death Wish 4 is a very interesting film until you realize that it isn't interested in pondering the bigger questions it asks on the fringes of the frame, that it just wants to get to Charles Bronson kicking ass and killing people in different ways.

Death Wish 4 starts off on familiar ground. It shows a lady taking a long way through a deserted parking garage. The series to this point has not been kind to pretty much any woman that shows her face on the screen and this one is no different (Sadly, this will pay off again at the end of the film... uh, spoiler I guess). She makes it to her car and it won't start. She sees a group of panty hose faced men in the distance and they rush her car and drag her our of it. Just as they are about to rape her, Kersey appears and kills two of them, clipping the third so he can't run away.

Slowly, the creep is hobbling away from Kersey, who is leisurely walking towards him. Kersey shoots the man, leaving him face down on the concrete. When Kersey flips him over so that the creep can stare Death in the face, this happens:

Anyone else find this sexy? Oh, just me? Okay. 

It is then revealed that Kersey is having a nightmare. Wow, I thought, Death Wish 4 is going to finally start to deal with Kersey's internal struggle with being the vigilante he has become in the first few films. Nope. That's left to the wayside as soon as we have a new target to hunt down. More on that in a second.

We then learn about what Kersey has been up to in the two years since he BLEW UP PARTS OF NEW YORK. He is back on the west coast (he originally left New York in the first film and ended up in Los Angeles in the second film. Maybe he still lived there during the third film; we don't know because third film just showed him taking a bus into New York at the start of it) and he is back at doing what he does second best, being an architect. He is in a committed relationship with a woman half his age, Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz), yet another staple of the Death Wish franchise. She is a crime reporter of a Los Angeles newspaper. She has a teenage daughter that looks up to Paul and wants to be an architect like him.

Perfect life for Paul 'Don't Worry I'm Not Going To Go Vigilantin' Again For A Fourth Time' Kersey. A Perfect life that is... until drugs show up.

Slow down there, you had me degradation.

Paul sees that Karen's daughter is going on a date with a guy who offers her a joint as she gets in his car. Kersey's Bronson-sense lights up and wonders if she will be okay. Karen insists that she will.

The daughter and her date end up at the 1980's pit of sin, the local arcade and meet up with two sketchy individuals, both are drug dealers but only one is Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager:

Getting high for this low low price is illogical, but great for business.

They give the girl a packet of 'special' drugs that turn out to be crack cocaine. This leads to her immediately overdosing off camera when Karen gets a phone call to come to the hospital. Minutes later, Karen and Paul see the girl die on the operating table.

Kersey first tries to track down the boyfriend, in hopes of seeing who he had gotten the drugs from. The boyfriend confronts the drug dealer that is not Tuvok and gets stabbed for it.

He was shocked that he lived as long as he did in a Death Wish film. 

This leads to Kersey chasing the drug dealer and shooting him, once again easily falling into the role of the vigilante. Though he got the payback from those directly responsible for the death of his girlfriend's daughter, all is not well.

We get a moment after the funeral when Karen is distraught and feels like there is nothing she could have done to stop this and feels so hopeless. Kersey reminds her that she is a writer for a big L.A. Newspaper and she should write about drugs and their impact on kids. She agrees with him and starts trying to get the bottom of the whole drug thing.

Wow, I thought, Death Wish 4 is going to deal with the idea that Paul Kersey might have to consider that not everything can be solved by violence. How do you fight an epidemic like drugs in the 1980's as one man with a gun? Are we in for a film in which Kersey works with his girlfriend to get evidence to bring people to justice?

*reads title of the film again* Oh, I forgot this was a Death Wish film, not a Maybe Not Shooting Bad Guys Is The Answer, Part 4.

We get one or two more scenes in which Karen is working at the newspaper, trying to get her editor to let her write a story on the cocaine epidemic in which he says 'Everyone's on drugs these days, no one cares.' Then she goes to a morgue to see the bodies of victims of cocaine abuse and she realizes with White Woman In The 1980's Horror, that all of the victims are pretty much kids. It's very heavy handed, but at least Death Wish 4 is trying to say something in its own messed up way. Karen is then pretty much fridged until the end of the film.

Soon Kersey finds out that someone knows of his past as the vigilante and has requested his presence to talk about a job. Kersey meets Mr. Nathan White (John P. Ryan, who we last saw as awesome scene chewing prison warden in Runaway Train), a wealthy man who recently lost a daughter to drugs. He wants Kersey to take out those that are in charge of the drug distribution in the greater Los Angeles area. White gives Kersey a blank check and access to whatever weapons he wants. Kersey does not take long to agree to do this. How do you fight an epidemic like drugs in the 1980's as one man with a gun? Evidently get a rich man to give you all of the money and all of the guns to shoot everyone else. That's how Chuck Bronson is going to win the war on drugs.

You might know me by my other name: Rich Moenymandian the 3rd.

The film then gets into an interesting groove in which Bronson is being given intel by White about all of the targets on his hit list, with narration from White explaining the background of those involved and the dangers associated with getting to each target. It felt very much like Death Wish 4 was suddenly a video game with Bronson having a specific scenario to accomplish each time, much like the Hitman video game franchise.

We see Bronson as a waiter at a fancy party for one head drug kingpins:

They say you don't have to tip the bartenders are parties, but trust me, you are going to want to tip this one. 

We never know how he got into the party, but we know never to ask Bronson too many questions or make direct eye contact.

Also, this has nothing to do with the plot or Paul Kersey's motivations, but this birthday cake was at the same party:

Um, I will take a thigh piece, I guess? 

Kersey then fakes being a wine salesman to get into an Italian restaurant where some of the drug kingpins hired guns have lunch. He tries to leave a 'free' bottle of wine with the men, but the delay him and make him sit down. Then this happens:

See? They didn't tip him. 

He then has to stop a movie theater to get more information from Mr. White. Notice anything in the background?

And that is about as much money as Cannon spent on advertising Runaway Train.
One poster, in the background of another movie.

I like that there is a poster for Runaway Train in the lobby and that Mr. White is making Kersey meet him during a screening of Otello. Both being Cannon films and with John P. Ryan being in Runaway Train, it was a fun little nod. Additionally, there is a video store that Kersey goes into that is plastered with other Cannon film posters. Work with what you got, right?

Anyway, back to the good stuff.

He is then tasked with getting into a fish cannery to find a drug smuggling operation. He makes sure to pack the right lunch for the job:

I am glad I packed a smaller gun. I need to save room for my dinner scoped rifle.

This part of the film is actually quite fun as it doesn't bother to explain how he keeps getting into these places or how he decides the best course of action. The movie doesn't care, and you shouldn't either. The goal of these acts of violence is to get the two biggest drug operations to turn on each other, with both thinking that the other is causing all of this damage to their own setups and men. And I will admit, I thought that this was actually kind of a clever idea. Well, clever is a relative term here when discussing the nuance (or lack thereof) in the Death Wish series so far. That there was supposed to be a bigger reason for the violence made me again think that this film was trying to go in a different direction. And nodding to the plot of A Fistful of Dollars doesn't hurt, either. 

There is a meeting of the two drug organizations, orchestrated by Kersey, that ends in chaos and violence. My favorite part is when a goon gets shot and is about to go head first into the glass of a car door, he has the good grace to lower his hands as not to cut them.

At least he hit the softest part of the car door.

Kersey eventually comes out of hiding to clean up the remaining trash and to let the remaining kingpin know why he is doing this. Kersey shows him a picture of Karen's daughter and he remarks that he doesn't even know who she is. Kersey comments that he does and then shoots the drug lord in the head.

Ah, my dinner gun!

Film over, right? Not so much. We now learn that Kersey has been being played by Mr. White, who actually isn't Mr. White, but a third drug kingpin that saw Kersey as weapon to aim at his competition and wipe them all out and give him control of Los Angeles.

Wow, I thought, Death Wish 4 is going to deal with the idea that Paul Kersey might have to accept that he has become the very thing he was fighting against. He is not a vigilante, but another hired gun killing people he doesn't know without any remorse. The earlier bit in the film when he had the dream about shooting himself  was hinting at this potential conflict and here it is right in front of him. Is he going to atone for what he did? Is he going to feel guilt?

Nah, Kersey does as he always does, and goes after the badder guy, regardless of the innocent lives of those around him that might be in harm's way. To be fair, Not Mr. White does kidnap Karen (hey, there she is again! Good job movie!) to draw Kersey out. White keeps Karen locked away in the most dangerous place on can think of: the roller rink.

I am the one who decides when its an All Skate or not. 

It is already a scary scenario, only made worse with the hindsight of the mass shootings that are happening in today's day and time, when people are firing guns in crowded areas. It gets ten times worse when they all have roller skates on. I am honestly surprised that the film didn't actually show collateral damage of people getting run over by roller skates. You sure as hell know Death Wish 3 is kicking itself for not doing it.

Kersey and White have a face to face showdown with Karen's life in the balance. She gets away from White only to be gunned down from behind. Karen exits the film with no real arc or any contribution other than being the mother of the girl who overdosed on drugs, loved a man double her age, and almost wrote a story about how drugs are bad. Sorry, Kay Lenz, I wish they would have given you more to do, but we know Cannon wasn't worried about women and their character development. Cannon wants tough guys being tough guys, exploding things. And that's exactly what we get:

'Wish... granted.' 

There was also another side story about a pair of cops trying to track down the identity of the vigilante and them figuring it out that is Kersey and then yet again letting him walk away when they see he was just trying to shoot the bad guys. There is no mention of his many crimes for being a paid hit-man for tow major drug organizations. Why would there be? Bad guy blow up! Time for the credits!

I am torn about this film because it kept bumping up against some really interesting ideas but would always turn back towards the tone deaf action and violence that the series had fallen into along the way. I believe had there been a just a little more self refection in this film, and having Karen actually do some journalism to try and expose those responsible for her daughter's death, Death Wish 4 could have had some legs that would make it a film honestly worthy of discussion.

It has been interesting to me so far while watching a lot Cannon films, how many of them almost stumble backwards into something more meaningful but then catch themselves at the last moment. I'm not saying Cannon could have righted their ship financially speaking with more thought put behind their action output, but it probably would have kept it from sinking as fast as it did. That and not overpaying yours stars. The budget for this film was 5 million and Bronson's salary was 4 million. That didn't help matters either.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown is a better film than Death Wish 3. It is better made, makes more sense (again relative to the rest of the series), and tires to address some issues about drugs and responsibility. It isn't as much fun though. It didn't have to be as much fun if it was going to try and be a more grounded and serious film, but when you have wine bottle bombs and lunch box Uzis, you know it was trying to have it both ways and it ends up being neither.  

Parting Cannon Shots 

Is this better or worse than The Apple?

This is better than The Apple. I do wonder what a Death Wish film with musical numbers would look like though.

The Menahem Index: 

50% This veers off into the ridiculous but not as much as I would expect had this film been made by Menahem Golan.

Would I recomment this film to anyone? 

Yes, if you want to run the complete Death Wish series just to see if 4 was able to top 3. If someone had not seen a previous Death Wish film, this is not the one I would recommend to watch by itself.

If you want to watch the film, it is up in its entirety on Daily Motion, you can check it out here.  

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