Matt Damon plays Mike McDermott, a talented poker and Microgaming Slots player who, near the beginning of the film, loses his entire bankroll to Teddy ‘KGB’, played by John Malkovich.  For many poker players this would be the end of their career and for Mike it is no different.  He decides to listen to his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol – ‘Jo’), attend law school and give up poker for good.

This new life appears to be going well until his old friend and fellow poker player Lester ‘Worm’ Murphy (Edward Norton) is released from prison.  Murphy owes an enormous debt to a unnamed gangster and manages to persuade Mike to begin playing the poker circuit again (rounding) to earn some money.  Jo leaves Mike and ultimately Murphy is given five days to find the $15,000 he owes, leaving the pair to embark on a desperate set of poker games at Microgaming Casinos in a vain effort to win the money.

When they win some money at a game with some State Troopers and are accused of cheating, they are badly beaten, leaving then with no money.  Murphy finally admits that the debt is owed to Teddy ‘KGB’ and makes a run for it.  Mike decides to stay and organises a game against ‘KGB’ to win his money back.  For the buy-in he resorts to borrowing some money from his law school professor.

Ultimately this is a film with a happy ending so we all know what happens.  In an extremely well-filmed poker match, Mike wins back around $30,000 from ‘KGB’, enabling him to pay off Murphy’s debt and pay back his professor.  There is no happy ending for Mike and Jo and the last we see of Mike is him beginning his journey to participate in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, having given up law as a career and a new one competing at Online Casino Spielen.  Check out the final action here:

Our hero is of course Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson).  Bronson was looking middle aged in Death Wish back in 1974 so by the time this was released in 1994 he really should have been collecting his pension rather than woodenly gunning down bad guys.

In this outing Kersey is back in New York city and living under a witness protection programme when his (considerably younger) girlfriend Olivia (Lesley-Anne Down) invites him to a fashion show.  A criminal gang cause trouble behind the scenes of the show and it is revealed that their leader Tommy (Michael Parks) was Olivia’s ex-husband and that they share a daughter, Chelsea.

The NYPD show up at Kersey’s address and persuade him to ask Olivia to testify against Tommy as they’ve been after him for years.  Tommy gets wind of this and sends a henchman to attack Olivia, leaving her requiring surgery in hospital.  Kersey now begins to get involved despite police warnings and as he begin to investigate, Tommy turns his attention towards our hero.

The henchman who attacked Olivia attacks her and Paul once more and this time manages to kill Olivia, yet another in the long line of Kersey’s girlfriends who have died in the name of vengeance.  You’d think by this point Kersey would have avoided the whole dating scene.

Anyway, Kersey is now on the trail of revenge and aided by Officer Hoyle (Saul Rubinek) from the NYPD who has discovered Tommy’s corruption of his colleagues.  Tommy’s henchman kidnaps Chelsea before Tommy setts a trap for Kersey who follows the henchman back to their hideout.

There are no surprises at the end and Kersey dispatches all the bad guys in various ways.  Tommy gets the most inventive ending after being shoved into a tub of acid.  The End.

We can keep our fingers crossed but it’s been 18 years since Death Wish V and so far we seem to be safe from a remake.

Enough of that though and let’s get down to the film; we start the narrative back in 1983 with Storm as the LA cop who is close to discovering the identity of a politician who is colluding with a group of mobsters and corrupt police officers.  He obtains taped evidence which he hides inside a hole in the wall of his house shortly before the corrupt cops break in and kill his wife.  His young son hides but Storm is injured and falls into a coma.  A close friend and fellow officer, Lieutenant O’Malley, announces that he has died to protect him from further attacks while the corrupt cops spread the word that Storm has killed his family and committed suicide.  O’Malley raises the boy in Storm’s absence.

It’s got all the ingredients for a great revenge tale but first Storm must spend seven years in a coma.  When he wakes up he is immediately under threat but a nurse, Andy (Kelly LeBrock), helps him escape and takes him back to a remote location to recover.

While undergoing recuperation Storm hears a familiar voice on the television which leads him to conclude that the above mentioned politician is now a Senator, Vernon Trent.  Storm now has his target for revenge and contacts O’Malley to obtain some weapons.  O’Malley gives Storm the good news that his son is still alive.

By this time Trent has perceived the threat and tracks Storm and Andy down to the remote house.  The pair escape and make their way to Storm’s old house to recover the tape containing the evidence.  As befits a B-movie script, O’Malley is killed when he brings Storm’s son to meeting, adding more motive for vengeance from our hero.

The climax to the film is the assault on Trent’s mansion.  After handing the video tape to Andy for safe keeping Storm creeps into the huge house and begins taking out the bad guys one by one until he finally confronts Trent.  At this point the police turn up and, having discovered the full story, arrest the Senator.  The last view we have is of the disclosed video tape playing and briefly showing Trent at the 1983 meeting.

Frank is a cook with a beautiful wife (Tyler) who leaves him for Jacques, the local drug dealer.  Sarah becomes hooked on drugs.  While in the depths of depression, Frank has a vision in which he is spoken to by a character from a TV show called the Holy Avenger.  He is told that God wants him to become a superhero and consequently Frank designs a costume and becomes the Crimson Bolt.

He begins to undertake a campaign of retribution against local criminals and becomes a media star, even when he beats up a man queue-jumping.  When he tries to rescue Sarah he is shot in the leg and goes to his friend Libby (Ellen Page) for help.  Libby is an unhinged comic book store employee who quickly develops a fascination with Frank.

Following a brief sexual encounter (unwanted by Frank), he sees Sarah’s face in his vomit  and is inspired to once more try to rescue Sarah.  Frank and Libby both head to Jacques’s ranch and begin to despatch the baddies.  During this raid Libby is shot and killed and this inspires Frank to even more extreme acts of brutality.  He kills all of Jacques’s henchmen and eventually tracks down Jacques himself.  During a final fight, Frank is shot and injured but stabs Jacques to death.

In a slightly odd finale, Frank helps Sarah to recover at home but she soon leaves him and starts a family with another man.  Frank professes to be happy with this situation and regards his mission from God as one in which he should make Sarah happy.  Super is not for the faint-hearted but it is good for a few laughs.  Check it out.

It’s 1987 and our hero Paul Kersey is now living back in Los Angeles and once again an incident which affects him personally is the catalyst which starts the orgy of revenge. Paul’s girlfriend is Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz) and Karen’s daughter is Erica (Dana Barron) who that evening heads out on a date with her boyfriend which concludes with her dying of an overdose after being given crack by ‘Jojo’.  Erica’s boyfriend Randy threatens to go to the police but Jojo kills him to stop this.

Kersey witnesses this killing ad subsequently dispatches Jojo.  A wealthy local publisher, Nathan White (John P. Ryan) gets wind of the killing and offers Kersey everything he needs to rid Los Angeles of it’s two biggest drug dealers.  We also learn that Nathan’s daughter previously died of a drugs overdose.

Now the fun begins as Kersey starts to investigate and track down the two drug lords, Ed Zacharias (Perry Lopez) and Jack Romero (Mike Moroff).  The first big action set piece takes place in Zacharias’ mansion but subsequent shootouts occur in an Italian restaurant and a video store.  The two rival drug dealers begin to suspect each other for obvious reasons and meet at some oil fields to talk about the events.  Kersey gets there before them and as he begins shooting, Zacharias and Moroff turn on each other, both ending up dead.

Now we learn that Nathan White is not who he appears to be and has used Kersey to wipe out the criminals.  He had planned to kill Kersey also and takes Karen hostage.  In the final scenes, Kersey pursues ‘White’ and eventually kills him with a grenade launcher. Karen is unfortunately killed in the process.

Death Wish 3 poster

instalment in the bunch; we’ve also written about the second film in the series, the cunningly named Death Wish 2 and now we’re going to take a closer look at Death Wish 3.  Death Wish 3 was director Michael Winner’s final stab at the franchise and perhaps he felt there wasn’t much more to add.

Death Wish 3 was released in 1985, one might argue at the end of the era in which these type of low budget vigilante movies were popular.  In this instalment our hero Paul Kersey (Bronson) has returned to visit a friend in Brooklyn after being booted out at the end of the first movie.  True to from, Kersey’s friend Charley is killed when his apartment is robbed and Kersey is briefly accused of the crime.  Finding himself in a police cell with the real killer, a fight ensues and when the pair are released threats are exchanged.

A detective named Shriker (Ed Lauter) who recognises Kersey gives him the go-ahead to clean up Charley’s neighbourhood by killing the muggers if he helps the police improve their arrest rate. This he begins to do with his usual enthusiasm and he twice helps a local girl Maria (Marina Sirtis) escape attack.  Unfortunately she is raped and killed in a third attack.

Kersey is helped in his endeavours by local resident Bennett Cross (Martin Balsam) who continues the work when Shriker decides to take Kersey into protective custody.  Bennett is subsequently injured by the local gang and when Shriker and Kersey visit him in hospital, Kersey absconds to wreak revenge.  With the help of another local resident they work their way through numerous criminals until they run out of ammunition at which point the neighbourhood residents join forces to help them.  Shriker also decides to lend a hand as gang leader Manny Fraker (Gavan O’Herlihy) returns with reinforcements.

The game is up for the gang by this time though and the final scene plays out in Charley’s apartment.  Kersey eventually ‘subdues’ Manny with a rocket launcher while the remainder of the gang are chased out of the area by the local residents.  Shriker now turns a blind eye while Kersey makes off into the distance.

Movie poster

released in 2007 and not to much critical acclaim, but it is what it is and, as they say, it does what it says on the tin.  Kevin Bacon is not an actor one would usually associate with action films but the very nature of revenge films means unexpected characters become heros.

It’s a fairly simple story of death and revenge, then more death and it’s worth a watch if you’ve got nothing better to do.  The first part of the film introduces Nick (Bacon) and his son Brendan (Stuart Lafferty), a talented ice hockey player.  Driving Stuart home from a match one day, a stop at a gas station turns into a tragedy when a local gang member is robbing the premises.  Stuart is mortally injured by the thug (Joe) and Nick manages to catch a glimpse of Joe’s face as he escapes.

Fearing that Joe will not receive an adequate prison sentence, Nick drops any charges against him and takes the laws into his own hands, tracking Joe down to his home and kills him.

The stage is now set for the second part of the film and this features Joe’s older brother Billy, the leader of the gang, who now wants revenge for his brother’s death.  At first unsure of the identity of the culprit, another gang member reveals that Nick may have been seen in the area that evening and Billy realises that Nick is of course responsible.

The gang ambush Nick who manages to escape unharmed.  In the process he kills another gang member which only serves to infuriate Billy even further.  The police now become involved, placing Nick and his wife Helen (Kelly Preston) and second son Luke (Jordan Garrett) under their protection.  The police protection proves to be particularly ineffective and the officers involved in the operation are all killed when Billy’s gang attack the location where they are residing.

In the ensuing violence, Helen is killed and Luke is badly injured, resulting in him falling into a coma in hospital.  At this point Nick finds himself in a position where he nothing left to lose and heads to a local gun dealer to obtain a weapon for the task ahead.  The gun dealer is Bones Darley (John Goodman) who, in an unlikely twist, happens to be the father of Billy.  The pair have now fallen out and ultimately Billy kills his father after another disagreement.

Once armed, Nick heads to the gang’s hideout known as ‘The Office’.  Here, in a final shootout, Nick and Billy injure each other; Billy’s injuries are worse and he dies after a second shot from Nick.  There’s a strange conversation here in which Billy seems to have an attack of conscience but in the context of the film it doesn’t really fit.

Staggering home, the last we see of Nick is him badly injured, sitting watching videos of his family.  A detective arrives and gives him the welcome news that Luke will be OK.

Invasion U.S.A. poster

this is is another outing for the inimitable Chuck Norris.  It was also partially written by him and a cynic might argue that it shows.  It’s one of the more outlandish stories Chuck has taken part in but this 1985 outing is a good laugh anyway.

The story all begins sensibly enough – considering this is a Chuck Norris film, when a boatload of what appear to be Cuban refugees are killed by what look like U.S. Coastguards but are actually drug smuggling, Latin American communists.  They steal a stash of drugs hidden in the boat and head to the Florida coast to exchange the goodies for weapons.

The FBI suspect Russian criminal Mikhail Rostov (Richard Lynch) as being behind the act and ask retired CIA agent Matt Hunter (Norris) to intervene to stop his Russian nemesis.  Hunter refuses but soon changes his mind when Rostov demands that Hunter be killed before he can carry out his dastardly plan.  The killing of Hunter fails and he decides to go after Rostov after all.

Rostov’s plan turns out to be a mini-invasion of Florida, which mostly consists of a few hundred armed guerillas landing on the beach and attacking homes.  It all seems to be some sort of group suicide mission and when the guerillas attack a shopping mall, Hunter arrives to despatch a few of the baddies.

Our hero now concocts a plan to lure the rampaging communists into a trap by faking his own arrest and having himself ‘held’ at a central command centre in Atlanta.  When Rostov finds out about the arrest he focuses on the command centre and plans an attack. Unbeknown to Rostov however, it’s all a big trap and waiting for his pesky guerillas are national guard troops, tanks and our man, Hunter.  Hunter comes face to face with Rostov in the final duel and eventually manages to kill him.  Check out the final duel:

Friday the 13th poster

of them.  Occasionally the perpetrator of the acts of revenge is not the good guy (or girl) and sometimes, as in the Friday the 13th series, he’s a real bad egg.  When the film was released, noted film critic Roger Ebert actually claimed that film goers would cheer for the killer.

Now we’re been subjected to nine more Friday 13th films, the plot for the original 1980 version tends to get a little lost in the blood, gore and hockey masks, but this is definitely a revenge film.

The film begins in the present day but we soon learn that the real story has started back in 1958 at a summer camp (Camp Crystal Lake) where two of the counsellors have sneaked away to a private cabin to have sex.  As they are enjoying themselves, a child they are supposed to be looking after drowns in the lake.  The couple are then murdered in the cabin.

Back in the present day we learn that a group of young people have returned to the camp to reopen it and this sets the scene for a series of revenge murders all connected to drowning of young Jason Voorhees.  Ned (Mark Nelson) is first to be despatched by a figure in a black raincoat, followed by Jack (Kevin Bacon) and Marcie (Jeanine Taylor) who are enjoying each other’s company in a cabin.  Steve (Peter Brouwer) the boss is next, followed by Brenda (Laurie Bartram).  Brenda is the first person to encounter a child’s voice saying “Help Me”.  Bill (Harry Crosby) is the final victim, before the last member of the group, Alice (Adrienne King) finds out the killer is Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), the mother of Jason.  Alice despatches Pamela with a head-lopping swing of a machete.

In the last scenes we see Alice in a canoe, drifting out on the lake in a kind of daze. Suddenly the decayed corpse of Jason emerges from the depths and drags her underwater before she wakes up in the local hospital.

Mad Max 2 poster

quickly asked to once again feature as Max Rockatansky for the sequel.  Mad Max 2 (also known as Road Warrior in various countries) was released in 1981, a mere two years after it’s predecessor.

After the events of the first film, Max’s world now involves driving around the outback searching for food, ammunition and petrol and with his dog as the only company.  Governments which were still in control in the first film have now completely collapsed and law and order no longer exists.

We first encounter Max again when he is threatened by an autogyro pilot (Bruce Spence) whom he ultimately subdues and then befriends.  He then sees for the first time ‘ the compound’, a small community of peaceful settlers holed up in a fortified camp, fending off the attentions of a biker gang led by The Humungous (Kjell Nilsson).  He witnesses several camp residents attempt an escape but get killed in the process, eventually taking one of the bodies back to the camp in return for some petrol.

There he is treated with suspicion and only trusted when he volunteers to break out, track down a petrol truck of which he knows the location and return it to the camp – the settlers can then use this to escape to the coast.  Max then accepts some petrol as payment and leaves, but is attacked and has his car destroyed and dog killed.  At this point he is rescued by the gyrocopter pilot and taken back to the camp where he must now help the settlers escape.

There follows the type of all action outback car/truck chase that the Mad Max series inspired, as a the truck and various vehicles of other camp residents head of across the desert with The Humungous and the rest of his biker gang in pursuit.  After many deaths and crashes, Max and a feral child appear to be the only survivors following the trucks destruction, but then Max discovers he has been used as a decoy – the fuel has been swapped to other vehicles and he is carrying sand.  Using this ruse, many settlers have managed to escape to the coast.

An excellent sequel, Mad Max 2 was critically acclaimed at the time and still commands a loyal audience thirty years later.