Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

Directed by J. Lee Thompson. Starring Charles Bronson, John P. Ryan, George Dickerson, Kay Lenz, Perry Lopez, Soon-Tek Oh, Mike Moroff, Dan Ferro, Dana Barron. [R]

Bronson shambles his way through another Death Wish exploitation movie, going after rival drug gangs, Yojimbo-style, after his girlfriend’s daughter dies of an overdose. For better or worse, it hardly even resembles the brutal vigilante roots anymore, and just takes the form of a routine action pic. Directed with minimal style and energy; script is as rudimentary and mindless as the bloodshed; low budget does it no favors, especially in one of the cheapest-looking explosion special effects to appear in a major motion picture. Opening scene, careening between parody-level thriller clichés and violent grotesqueries, feels like it belongs in a completely different film. Seeing as how every woman who ever gets close to Bronson’s character seems to wind up dead, he should really consider a life of hermetic celibacy at this point. Danny Trejo and Mitch Pileggi have bit parts.

25/100