Brad’s “Scene of the Day” – Alex Winter seems hungry in DEATH WISH 3 (1985)!

Posted on July 17, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Well everyone has to start somewhere! Today I celebrate Alex Winter’s 60th birthday by watching a scene from DEATH WISH 3, the insane Charles Bronson vigilante classic, where Alex earned his first big screen credit as gang member Hermosa! What an honor it must have been for Alex to get smashed in the head with a tire tool by the legend in his signature series of revenge. If you haven’t seen DEATH WISH 3 before, you may never see “Bill” in quite the same light again!

(Note – the scene below features taunts and threats of an extreme sexual nature. Do NOT hit play if that offends you!)

DEATH WISH 3 – The movie I’ve watched more than any other!

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Bradley Crain

I’m on Day 3 of my discussion of Charles Bronson’s DEATH WISH series in chronological order. This series has brought me countless hours of entertainment over the last 40 years, so enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

DEATH WISH 3 is a very important movie to me. I recently closed my celebration of Charles Bronson’s 103rd birthday movie marathon on November 3rd with another viewing of DEATH WISH 3, the film that turned me into the only Charles Bronson superfan in Toad Suck, Arkansas. After a day of celebratory viewings of CHATO’S LAND, 10 TO MIDNIGHT (on VHS), FROM NOON TIL THREE, COMBAT: HERITAGE (on VHS), THE SEA WOLF (on VHS), and the original DEATH WISH, I had no choice but to watch DEATH WISH 3, a movie I have watched well over 100 times over the course of my life. DEATH WISH 3 is one of only four Charles Bronson films that I have seen on the big screen, as I was able to watch it at the Mahoning Drive-In in Lehighton, PA in June of 2022.

The third entry in the DEATH WISH franchise begins with Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) riding a Go Big Red Trailways bus into New York City. Since this is an odd numbered DEATH WISH film, it takes place in New York. The even numbered films take place in Los Angeles. Kersey looks kind of grumpy as he rides into town. I would definitely avoid sitting next to him if I was a passenger on the same bus that day. We learn that Kersey’s coming into town to visit his old buddy, Charlie. Unfortunately, his arrival coincides with members of a violent street gang breaking into Charlie’s apartment and beating him to death. Just after the punks go running away from the scene of the crime, Kersey walks into Charlie’s apartment to find the man clinging to his last breath of life and asking Kersey to “take care of his things, until I get back.” Some of Charlie’s neighbors had called the police a little earlier, and they arrive just in time to find Kersey standing over the body, so they arrest him for his old buddy’s murder. This seems reasonable since Kersey is the only person wearing a sports jacket and button up shirt in this gang infested area. Kersey is taken to the police station where a group of cops commence to beating the crap out of him in hopes of getting a confession. After a few punches to the gut by the cops and the old “you can have water if you tell us what we want to know” routine, Lt. Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter) enters the room and promptly asks “Who’s this dude?” You see, Kersey is going under the alias Paul Kimble, but Shriker recognizes the dude as Paul Kersey, the vigilante from the original DEATH WISH. Shriker goes on to explain that he was with the New York PD the night they brought in a vigilante with a bullet in his leg who was out like a light. Having the vigilante in town again, light bulbs immediately go off over Shriker’s head and he quickly hatches a plan. It seems a gang of criminals, led by Mandy Fraker (Gavan O’Herlihy) has taken over the community and police have been powerless to stop them. First, it’s really hard to catch the gang members because some of them can run really fast, and second, when they finally do catch them, the gang members have lawyers who can get them off. Lt. Shriker decides he’ll let Kersey out of jail, but only if Kersey is willing to resume his vigilante ways, shoot some of the creeps, and even throw some street info the police department’s way so they can get a few busts. Paul Kersey immediately agrees even though he seems kind of tired. You can’t help but wonder if Kersey might be needing the release that only can be achieved through violence against creeps. In short order, Kersey sets up shop in his old buddy’s apartment so he can take care of his things, gets to know the local residents, waits for an arsenal of African big game pistols and rocket launchers to arrive via UPS, makes love to public defender Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin), and eats all sorts of local delicacies like stuffed cabbage and broiled chicken. As an added bonus, the neighborly Bennett (Martin Balsam) just happens to have a couple of Browning machine guns in his closet that he was somehow able to smuggle home from World War II. It’s against this backdrop that Kersey sets out to wage a one-man war against the violent gang that has turned the corner of Sutter and Belmont into hell on earth!

There’s not much I can say about DEATH WISH 3 that hasn’t already been said. It’s a wild, over the top action film that would mark the 6th and final film that Bronson would work on with director Michael Winner. It would also be Charles Bronson’s last film that would rise to #1 at the U.S. box office when it premiered on November 1st, 1985. It features some fun performances, especially from Ed Lauter as Lt. Shriker, Gavan O’Herlihy as gang leader Mandy Fraker, and Kirk Taylor as the gang member known as the Giggler who “can really move,” but who’s still not fast enough to outrun a bullet! A pre-Bill and Ted’s Alex Winter also plays a gang member named Hermosa, continuing the series tradition of casting actors as street creeps who would go on to be a bigger star a few years down the road. DEATH WISH 3 is not a great movie in the traditional sense, but it’s one of the most enjoyable movies ever made if you’re in the right frame of mind.

DEATH WISH 3 is the movie most responsible for my obsession with Charles Bronson. I received it as a Christmas present in 1986 when I was thirteen years old, and I proceeded to watch it almost daily for months. It was the only Bronson film I owned on VHS so I would watch it almost every night unless I had a basketball game, or I had been able to rent a different Bronson film from the video store. I know every line in the film and no other movie holds more nostalgic value in my life. DEATH WISH 3 is a 5-star movie in my book in so many ways that have nothing to do with critical acclaim. As long as I’m breathing, long live DEATH WISH 3!!!

BONUS: We completed a roundtable a few weeks back on the THIS WEEK IN CHARLES BRONSON PODCAST, where we spend the entire episode discussing what we love about DEATH WISH 3. I had a blast on the episode with my partner in crime Eric Todd, as well as fellow “Buchinsky Boys” Chris Manson & David Mittelberg. We even throw some love TSL’s way during the episode. Give it a listen if you get the chance!

Bronson’s Old: Death Wish 3 (1985, directed by Michael Winner)

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

To quote Roger Murtaugh, “I’m too old for this shit.”

It has been ten years since Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) left New York City and the place has gone to Hell. It’s no longer just muggers that you have look out for. Now, there are roving street gangs of directionless teenagers, terrorizing the elderly and forcing them to live like prisoners in their own apartment building.

One street corner now looks like a war zone, controlled by spiky-haired, face-painting punks who look like something from a Mad Max movie. Manny Fraker (Gavan O’Herlihy) rules this street corner, supported by a gang that worships him as if he was some sort of god. Manny thinks that he is immortal but he’s just targeted the wrong person. The gang may think that Charley (Francis Drake) is just a defenseless old man but what they don’t know is that, when Charley served in Korea, his best friend was Paul Kersey.

The past few years have been busy for Paul. He’s killed muggers and rapists in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Kansas City and now he’s returned to New York City, to visit his old friend Charley. Paul arrives at Charley’s apartment just in time to witness Fraker’s gang murdering him. The gang flees and when the police arrive, they take Paul into custody.

While public defender Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin) tries to figure out why Paul is being held in jail, Paul has a conversation with Lt. Shriker (Ed Lauter). Shriker remembers Paul as being the New York vigilante and he has a proposition for him. Paul can kill as many members of Fraker’s gang as he wants, as long as he allows the police to take the credit and reports everything that he discovers to Shriker. Paul agrees.

In the neighborhood, Paul starts to put Fraker and his gang (one of whom is played by pre-Bill and Ted Alex Winter) in their place. In a scene borrowed from Brian Garfield’s original Death Wish novel, he uses a used car as bait to gun down two aspiring car thieves. When Paul gets a new gun, he tests it out on a depraved mugger known as the Giggler. Though some might call him a serial killer, Paul is soon a hero to the entire neighborhood. Though Charley may be gone, Paul befriends the other residents of the apartment. He shows the elderly Kaprovs how to catch anyone trying to climb through their window. He protects Maria Rodriguez (Marina Sirtis) from the gang. Best of all, he befriend Bennett Miller (Martin Balsam), a World War II vet who still remembers how to load a machine gun.

(Balsam and Bronson previously co-starred in The Stone Killer, though in that one Bronson was a cop and Balsam was on the other side of the law.)

He also finds time to pursue a relationship with Kathryn Davis. This is one recurring element in the Death Wish franchise that has never made sense to me. Paul always has a new girlfriend, despite the fact that almost every woman that he ever gets involved with ends up getting killed. Paul also only seems to go out with women who would be upset to discover that they were dating a notorious vigilante. In Death Wish II, he went out with a crusading journalist who was against the death penalty. In Death Wish 3, he falls for a public defender whose job is to provide legal counsel to the very people that Paul is trying to kill. After Death Wish 3, Paul would date yet another crusading journalist and, finally, the ex-wife of a notorious mobster. Maybe Paul should just give up and concentrate on mourning his wife.

Michael Winner returned to direct Death Wish 3 and, this time around, he imagines New York City as being a post-apocalyptic wasteland, full of abandoned buildings and murderous scavengers. Imagine A Clockwork Orange if Charles Bronson suddenly showed up to shoot Alex and the Droogs. As played by Gavan O’Herlihy, Manny Fraker is the type of seemingly indestructible bad guy who can actually give Paul Kersey a challenge, something that was missing from the previous films.

The other thing that distinguishes Death Wish 3 is that it was one the only film in the franchise to directly confront an obvious truth. Charles Bronson was 53 when the first Death Wish was released. By the time he made Death Wish 3, he was 64 and decades older than the typical action star. (As way of comparison, Clint Eastwood was 55 when Death Wish 3 was released and was already experimenting with less action-orientated roles.) By partnering him with Martin Balsam and the other elderly residents of the neighborhood, Death Wish 3 not only acknowledged Bronson’s advanced age but also took advantage of it. Death Wish 3 is a film where the old folks finally get to teach the young punks a thing or two. If the other Death Wish films were about one man fighting a lonely war, Death Wish 3 is about a community refusing to be silenced. The chance to put those kids in their place even seems to perk up Charles Bronson, who gives one of his best performances in Death Wish 3.

Death Wish 3 may have been roundly despised by the critics but it’s the best of the Death Wish sequels. It made a fortune at the box office so naturally, another sequel would follow.

Tomorrow: Death Wish 4: The Crackdown!