On paper, a filmmaker with a penchant for delivering wince-inducing onscreen violence partnering up with one of the most iconic action heroes of a generation to tackle a remake of a classic revenge thriller would be an exciting prospect, but Eli Roth and Bruce Willis’ Death Wish was anything but.
Charles Bronson’s 1974 original gave the actor’s career a brand new lease of life, even if it did end up seeing him typecast as the granite-faced tough guy who shoots first and asks questions later. Willis was right in the middle of his VOD era, too, so it was actually a rarity to see him headlining a studio-backed theatrical release when Death Wish V2.0 landed in March of 2018.
Unfortunately, critics and paying customers were left less than impressed, with the brutal $30 million flick earning less than $50 million at the box office, while an 18 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and a pair of nominations at the Razzies rubbed further salt into the wounds.
That being said, Death Wish holds a user average of 71 percent on the aggregation site from upwards of 5000 votes, so there’s clearly a lot of people out there who thoroughly enjoyed the rampage of retribution dished out by Willis’ grieving father when his wife and daughter are brutally attacked and left for dead.
A great deal of them appear to be streaming subscribers, too, seeing as FlixPatrol has named Death Wish as one of the most-watched features on the ViaPlay global charts. Some films just aren’t made for critics, and it looks like this is definitely one of them.
