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paulkersey
Reviews
The Last Marshal (1999)
Laugh a minute farce!
As noted above this film borrows from every action film of the last 25 years. It's part Dirty Harry, part Death Wish, part Lonewolf McQuaid and part Terminator 2 (sans robots). The plot is just ridiculous and has so many flaws, but that is what makes the film.
Cole McClary is brilliantly racist homophobic US Marshall. The dialogue throughout the film is just farcical. The scene where he arrives in Miami and meets his new partner (who introduces himself as Don Johnson) is pure comedy gold.
This film taught me lots I didn't know about the US Marshalls and the DEA. For example, DEA agents must have training in the art of ninjitsu. It's acceptable when rading a house to snap the neck of a guard. Speedboats can catch motorbikes. US Marshalls can commit extra-judicial executions. When your drug deal/party is busted, gun down all of your guests. If you're a Marshall, you needn't worry about not reporting the people you kill. That's OK.
A quality film. A definite must for fans of classics such as Death Wish 3.
Death Wish 3 (1985)
Comedy gold! You'll laugh! You'll cry!
I'll lay my cards on the table -- I'm a Charles Bronson fan. He's not a very good actor and his films aren't very good. But he was the most popular actor in the world for at least a decade around the 1970s.
Death Wish 3 is possibly his finest hour. He plays Paul Kersey, lilly-livered liberal turned urban vigilante and distributer of the harshest brand of street justice. Kersey gets back to New York just in time to find his buddy beaten to a pulp. Someone is going to pay for this. Luckily there's a gang, some baddies, a policeman that gives Kersey carte blanche to kill anyone he wants, some old people who eat cabbage soup ("Cabbage soup?... my favourite!"), a female-close-to-Kersey who dies (essential component in all Death Wish films) and a 15 minute kill-anyone-that-moves-riot finale.
There aren't any "continuity errors" in this film, but you simply cannot watch it would being able to suspend disbelief. It's a ridiculous film -- and it's notable that Death Wish 4 and 5 tried to move away from the comic book violence. But get your friends around, have a few drinks and put this on. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll remember Bronson the way he would have wanted you to -- tough, killing the baddies and not saying much.