Movie of the Year: Death Wish

Took the Diplowife, Diploson 1, Diploson 2, and Diploson 2 Girlfriend to the movies tonight.

We saw the Eli Roth/Bruce Willis movie, "Death Wish."

It's the movie of the year.

Hands down.

No other film comes close.

OK, it's a remake. Sort of. It has the same basic storyline that the 1974 Michael Winner/Charles Bronson "Death Wish" had--well, sort of.

In both films, the wife and the daughter of the protagonist, Paul Kersey, are brutally attacked at home by some thugs. The wife dies; the daughter is left in a coma. Mild-mannered Paul--in the original a New York architect, in the new one a Chicago ER trauma surgeon--goes to the police, and does everything a good citizen should. The cops, of course, are nigh on useless, swamped by unsolved crimes, understaffed, and just plain numb to the suffering.

In the original, Paul has an epiphany after visiting a friend and business associate in gun-loving Arizona, who tells him the cops won't protect him, and gives him a revolver. In this version, Paul has his epiphany after taking his wife's body home to her family in gun-loving Texas, and hearing from his gun-toting father-in-law (played by excellent Canadian actor Len Cariou) how the police won't protect him and a MAN, yes, a MAN, has to protect what's his. In both films, Paul subsequently goes on a rampage against the thugs on the street, with the added twist in the new version of his seeking the actual thugs who attacked his family.

I won't give the rest away, but you're guaranteed to have a rollicking time in the theater--and watch out for that bowling ball!

How can you resist a movie which portrays the gun store clerk as an attractive, young, smart, funny, and sympathetic woman? How can you resist a movie which has a college student reading from Milton Friedman? How can you resist a movie with conservative talk jock Mancow Mueller playing conservative talk jock Mancow Mueller? How can you resist a movie that constantly cites the murder stats in Chicago? How can you resist Bruce Willis agonizing over how he failed as a MAN, yes, a MAN, in his duty to protect his family? How can you resist a movie in which the main detective (played by the always great Dean Norris of "Breaking Bad" fame) spits out an organic, gluten-free, protein bar in disgust? How can you resist a movie that gives out good advice on proper handling of a firearm, and approvingly cites and demonstrates the wisdom of the phrase "when seconds count, the police are minutes away"? You can't. Resistance is futile.

OK, it's got a few technical flaws.

First, as Diploson 2 pointed out to me, nowadays just about no college student would be assigned to read Milton Friedman--not PC. Second, the availability of fully automatic weapons is just way off--you'll see what I mean at the end. Third, too many of the Chicago street thugs are white.

Put those quibbles aside, however, forget I even mentioned them; watch a movie that the liberal/progressive critics are hating, blasting, and ridiculing as a paean to a dying white patriarchy but which audiences are loving. Go to Rotten Tomatoes, if you don't believe me, and see the striking disparity between the views of "professional" critics and those of real people.

Offend the critics. Watch it.

Movie of the year.