BRINGING THE (ARMIE) HAMMER DOWN

"Citizen Vigilante" is a good movie, but comes up short next to "Nobody"

Vigilante themes are common in cinema, Hollywood’s left-leaning proclivies notwithstanding. Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” (1974), aptly remade in 2018 in one of Bruce Willis’s last films, remains a classic. In the Bronson version, Paul Kersey is an architect (in the Willis version, he is a surgeon) whose wife is killed by muggers and his daughter raped and severely injured. Realizing he is not helpless to fight back against such ferals, Kersey turns from reactionary, where he turns the tables on a mugger, to a hunter. In both films, as the vigilante’s exploits gain public attention, some hail him as absolutely necessary, others see him as a threat to order. Both movies end with the police suspecting Kersey is the vigilante, but in each case he is released due to lack of proof and due to the fact that deep down, the police value his contributions.