There is a scene in which Bronson, as a wealthy professional hit man, enters his house and finds the glamorous Jill Ireland waiting for him in a robe and ballet slippers. She's missed him terribly, she says breathlessly. Then she reads him a letter she wrote but was reluctant to mail. It's full of lovely prose. She begs him to carry her into the bedroom.
Dissolve. It's the next morning and Bronson has just finished dressing while Ireland lies naked under the covers. "It will be an extra hundred this time" she tells him. "The letter took a long time to write." He throws a handful of bills into her jewelry box and leaves. Just another business transaction.
The whole movie is about Bronson's dead soul. Some Boschian monstrosities fascinate him. But he cares nothing about women or anything else except living well. He runs into a kindred spirit in the physical form of Jan Michael Vincent -- young, handsome, blond, and as cold-blooded as Bronson himself.
Bronson, takes Vincent under his tutelage. "I might need some back up." There is a brutal martial arts lesson. There is a mass murder in an opulent home. (Nobody in this movie is poor.) A couple of car chases ending in exploding fireballs. A shoot out on a yacht in the harbor of Naples. A motorcyclist roaring headlong off a cliff and hitting the bottom of the chasm with an equally impressive fireball.
How -- you might ask -- does a motorcycle blow up if it smashes on the rocks? It's a good question.
The musical score is fulsome, tinny, and full of ear-aching dissonance. Charles Bronson is the best actor in the movie.
I can't imagine why the movie was made. Oh, Bronson can be fun with his striking Pancho Villa mustache but I prefer him as the hero, not as the guy who dumps his victims' bodies into an acid bath and tells Vincent, "By tomorrow morning they'll all be in solution." Most of his movies are dumb in outstanding ways but he's still a better hero than heavy. His villainy is retrograde and reminds us of those 1950s classics like "House of Wax," in which he was REALLY dumb.
Beautiful houses, beautiful clothes, no performances worthy of the name, and a story out of Screenplays 101. Nothing much to recommend it.
Dissolve. It's the next morning and Bronson has just finished dressing while Ireland lies naked under the covers. "It will be an extra hundred this time" she tells him. "The letter took a long time to write." He throws a handful of bills into her jewelry box and leaves. Just another business transaction.
The whole movie is about Bronson's dead soul. Some Boschian monstrosities fascinate him. But he cares nothing about women or anything else except living well. He runs into a kindred spirit in the physical form of Jan Michael Vincent -- young, handsome, blond, and as cold-blooded as Bronson himself.
Bronson, takes Vincent under his tutelage. "I might need some back up." There is a brutal martial arts lesson. There is a mass murder in an opulent home. (Nobody in this movie is poor.) A couple of car chases ending in exploding fireballs. A shoot out on a yacht in the harbor of Naples. A motorcyclist roaring headlong off a cliff and hitting the bottom of the chasm with an equally impressive fireball.
How -- you might ask -- does a motorcycle blow up if it smashes on the rocks? It's a good question.
The musical score is fulsome, tinny, and full of ear-aching dissonance. Charles Bronson is the best actor in the movie.
I can't imagine why the movie was made. Oh, Bronson can be fun with his striking Pancho Villa mustache but I prefer him as the hero, not as the guy who dumps his victims' bodies into an acid bath and tells Vincent, "By tomorrow morning they'll all be in solution." Most of his movies are dumb in outstanding ways but he's still a better hero than heavy. His villainy is retrograde and reminds us of those 1950s classics like "House of Wax," in which he was REALLY dumb.
Beautiful houses, beautiful clothes, no performances worthy of the name, and a story out of Screenplays 101. Nothing much to recommend it.