Death Wish Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

3. The Hilariously Heavy-Handed Politics

Though Death Wish has been heavily criticised for being released in the wake of several prominent shootings in America, that says nothing of what the film itself is actually saying to audiences.

Look, nobody was expecting anything more from Death Wish than a typical revenge thriller, but Carnahan's script apparently couldn't stop there, and decided to dial up the eye-rollingly unsubtle social commentary, far in excess of the original's (which seems positively subdued by comparison).

Here, media personalities literally bark the movie's duelling agendas at the viewer in slickly-edited montages, and though the film isn't inherently glorifying Kersey's behaviour - though it basically is - it often ends up feeling like you're watching a news roundtable discussion rather than an actual movie.

It's a film that's marketed itself on Bruce Willis indiscriminately slaughtering "bad people", but then also spends way too long lecturing you about it.