'MESSENGER OF DEATH'....BRONSON DELVES INTO A CULT'S CIVIL WAR....GOOD LUCK WITH THAT , CHARLIE......

Messenger Of Death (1988)     You could divide up the career of Charles Bronson into four eras......the first, as a struggling Hollywood supporting role actor, mostly in westerns and action adventures ("The Great Escape", "The Dirty Dozen", "The Magnificent Seven")

        ...second, a surprising ascendancy as an iconic superstar of  international cinema...("Once Upon A Time In The West" "Red Sun","Rider On The Rain")

          ......third, a return to America as genuine official action A-lister, with high profile, provocative violent dramas - ("Death Wish", "The Valachi Papers", "The Mechanic", "Chato's Land")

           .....and the fourth and sadly, last .....a descent into the slapdash, low budget sausage factory of Golan-Globus Cannon Films, where a stoic, disinterested Bronson wandered through sludge like the "Death Wish" sequels, assorted bloody cop shoot-em-ups.....and a few oddball items like "Messenger Of Death".....

          We say odd because this one places Bronson in a passive, reactive role, as opposed to the law-unto-himself cops he usually played in the Cannon junkpile. 

           As a Denver Colorado newspaper reporter, he covers what appears to be a horrific, blood drenched intramural war between two elderly brothers leading fanatical religious cultists. 

            And these nutball geezers (John Ireland, Jeff Corey) ain't kiddin' around........the film kicks off with a hit team showing up to shotgun slaughter a houseful of cultists, including their screaming little children.

          But leave it our Charlie to figure out that the villains involved in all the carnage aren't cult Krazies, but the usual corporate slime who lust after the natural resources on the cult owned land.  Maybe his first clues came from all those 18 wheelers attempting to squish him flat every time he hits the road. 

         Too bad for the cult crowd those revelations don't occur before the God fearing fundamentalists take to blasting away at each other in a full Hatfields-'n-McCoys gun battle.  Then again, it wouldn't count as a Bronson-Cannon movie without a serious body count pile-up.......

         It's highly watchable though, thanks to a sterling cast of pros who probably wish they were doing something better than 3rd-tier, direct-to-VHS Cannon fodder - Ireland, Corey, Laurence Luckinbill, Trish Van Devere, Danel Benzali, Marily Hassett.

         And for Bronson completists and those fans who still revel in the Golan-Globus Grindhouse Graveyard, you most definitely don't want to miss this one....compared to some other stuff in this fourth era of Bronson, not bad....

        ......and that's the best you can hope for....2& 1/2 stars (**1/2)