GUNS 'N POSES........WE TRY TO WISH AWAY THE 'DEATH WISH' REMAKE.......

Death Wish (2018)   44 years ago, the ever prolific director Michael Winner grabbed the 1974 Zeitgeist  by the balls with  "Death Wish"........

              The Vietnam war raged on.......American cities were no-man's-land war zones, dominated by muggers, murderers, drug dealers and assorted thugs........

               In the midst of all this malaise, Hollywood discovered box office gold.........in Revenge.

               It was the era of 'Billy Jack' and 'Walking Tall'.........nothing was more cathartic than watching an Ordinary Joe, pushed to the limit by crooks and goons, take up arms (or kung-fu feet) for some satisfying payback........

               New York City, already well established as a modern-day Dante's Inferno by films like "The French Connection", served as the perfect hunting ground for Charles Bronson's fed-up architect.......seeking eye-for-eye retribution against the city's vast army of twitchy rapists and robbers.

             Boy did they have it comin', with director Winner treating us to the gruesome sight of Bronson's wife and daughter attacked by home-invaders, who murder his wife and gang rape his daughter into a vegetative coma.

              Whatever anyone thought of the original 'Death Wish', it stood out as a product of its era.

              And the new "Death Wish"?   It's just a product.  Period.

              Directed by slasher-shlocker-goremeister Eli Roth, it's worthless, pointless studio packaged sausage with nothing on its tiny mind.........other than to give mouth-breathing, butter popcorn gobblers a few jollies as they watch slimeballs get blown away by machine guns or squished like bugs under falling cars......

              Roth only perks up and shows a pulse when he's organizing scenes of spectacular splatter......the revenge part of the storyline only interests him in terms of how much fake blood he can splooge across the screen......

             And since the movie has no real purpose or agenda other than its bullet-ridden bodies, Roth found a perfect lead actor.......the burned-out, bored-to-death, barely-even-there Bruce Willis.....

             Willis, all of his remaining energy sucked away by the direct-to-video crap he's been reduced to, glumly troops through this film like he's on his way to a firing squad.

             The only actor in this sludge who appears alert is the always edgy, unpredictable Vincent D'Onofrio, stuck in the useless, thankless role of Willis's brother.  (If Roth had only used D'Onofrrio as the rampaging avenger, he might have at least given the film an exuberant, down 'n dirty Grindhouse vibe....)

             No more words left about this junk..........wait a few more weeks and you'll find it where it was meant to go all along.......the $3.74 bin at Wal-Mart.   Zero stars....(0).