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Yep i know, it depends on what title you prefer!
I didn't realise until years later after i'd seen it that it was also called 'Hard Times' which to me sounds like a Dickensian melodrama..!
😅 Well it is a Dickens title!
But it does describe the depression era in the movie, which Hill depicts very well, and 'Streetfighter' just sounds cheap socky type of film, which Hills movie is not! My excellent 4K remastered bluray has the proper title!
So that's where i got the Dickens comparison from! :))
Great movies, but Bronson wasn't the lead in any of them!
Heh, Hunt directing Death Hunt. :)
I've always been a Bronson fan since I was a kid and have seen most of his films
I'll break them down into groups, but only include ones where he was the lead or co-lead (i.e. I won't be including The Magnificent 7, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen, The Battle Of The Bulge or Never So Few, which are all worth a watch)
The Best (in no particular order)
Once Upon A Time In The West (with Henry Fonda and Jason Robards), Mr Majestik, The Mechanic, Red Sun (with Toshiro Mifune and Alain Delon), Violent City (Uncut European version), Rider On The Rain, Death Wish, Hard Times (aka The Streetfighter, with James Coburn)
The Good
The Stone Killer, The Evil That Men Do, Telefon, Death Hunt (with Lee Marvin), Farewell Friend (with Alain Delon), You Can't Win 'Em All (with Tony Curtis), Death Wish 2 & 3 (2 is marked down a bit for being a rerun of 1 and 3 is a bit OTT)
The Ok
Cold Sweat (with James Mason), St Ives, Murphies Law, Chato's Land (just not enough Bronson in it for mine), Breakheart Pass, Death Wish 4 (unlike many, I enjoy 4, haven't seen 5 yet but I'm thinking I might change my mind a give it a shot)
The Flawed (but somehow I still find things to enjoy in them)
Love & Bullets (despite a truely grating and irritating performance from Jill Ireland), Caboblanco, Assassination, Messenger of Death (purely for the awesome big rig v pickup truck chase, with then unknown Sly Stallone driving the truck. It's available to be viewed in isolation on Youtube, so you can avoid having to endure the rest of the movie)
Proto Bronson
Machinegun Kelly (by Roger Corman), Gang War (proto Paul Kersey?), When Hell Broke Loose (WW2) and Showdown At Boot Hill (Western) are all tidy little B movies which can be appreciated by true-blue Bronson fans.
Others
The Valachi Papers (fine for what it is, but not a "Bronson" movie)
Raid On Entebbe (fine for what it is, but not a "Bronson" movie),
10 To Midnight (I find routine slasher / serial killer movies boring),
From Noon Till Three (Mr & Mrs Bronson indulge themselves),
The White Buffalo (too weird and supernatural for my blood),
Borderline (not enough action),
Breakout (a failed attempt to do a Burt Reynolds movie, or a Clint Eastwood "Any Which Way" movie)
Death Wish
Death Wish 2
Death Wish 3
Death Wish 4: The Crackdown
Death Wish V: The Face Of Death
Cold Sweat
The Mechanic
The Stone Killer
Mr Majestyk
Love And Bullets
10 To Midnight
Murphy's Law
Assassination
Messenger Of Death
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects
And while they are not strictly Bronson films; The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen too.
Breakout as a Burt Reynolds movie is a funny description but it was made in 1975. It looks more like a Steve McQueen's leftover.
It's a weird movie.
Shows Charlie was trying to stay ahead of the curve, and I think it could have worked out, if the script and director had been up to it.
Burt played Gator McKlusky in "White Lightning" in 1973 and WW Bright in "WW & The Dixie Dance Kings" in 1975
He's a moonshine runner in WL, but the film is not particularly comedic
However I consider WW&TDDK to be the template for future "Burt Reynolds movies" like "Smokey & The Bandit"
Meanwhile the James Bond franchise gave us JW Pepper, the archtypal catankerous, car chasing, comic relief sheriff in "Live & Let Die" also in 1973. James Bond was ahead of the curve in those days, in fact, as far as I (or my AI Copilot) can determine, JW Pepper is the first example of a comedic contemporary southern sheriff in movies, not an innovation I would have anticipated as originating with the Bond franchise.
Not sure I recall Steve McQueen doing anything as 'light hearted' as "Breakout" during this phase of his career, apart from "The Reivers", which is very atypical of anything else he did after 1963.
"Breakout" had some impressive names in it too, Robert Duval, John Huston, Randy Quaid...
This is a slice of vintage Bronson style action, kicking ass and taking names, perhaps his best effort of the late 1980s (which some will suggest is not saying much, but aficionados’ will take as a recommendation)
Chuck is still pretty spry for his age, although he does require a bit of assistance from the film’s editor during the fight scenes, and he gets to emote a bit more than usual in this one, as his character grapples to suppress the urge to beat the be-Jesus out of anyone who pays any sort of attention to his 15 year old daughter. Fortunately, this time around, his female family members get off very lightly when compared to some of his other films.
Unlike “Death Wish 2" or “The Evil That Me Do” there is no sadistic, voyeuristic violence on display. Nasty sexual acts are implied rather than shown in graphic detail. Those in the audience seeking that sort of entertainment may still be titillated by the proximity, but there is no actual payoff (at least, not in the version I watched).
There’s an intriguing subplot involving a Japanese man who skirts along the edges of perversion, while also becoming an indirect victim of it. He does cross the line, without completely diving into the deep end, but in the end the audience can hope he has learned his lesson and returned to the path of decency. As part of the same thread, Bronson becomes xenophobic when his daughter is sexually molested by an Asian man, but regains his perspective after an Asian girl becomes the victim of kid-napping and sexual exploitation, and he feels empathy for her parents anguish. This aspect of the plot is one of many reasons why reviewers of the politically correct persuasion hate on the film. The director walks a moral tightrope, but overall I think it handles things with a reasonable amount of subtlety and sensitivity, however I can also understand why many may not be satisfied with the way it pans out.
Fans of unambiguous villainy and old-testament justice can rest easy though, there are also plenty of utter and complete scumbags for Chuck to wail on (in sometimes imaginative ways). The LA that exists in this movie is far from being completely realistic, Bronson’s “Dirty Harry on steroids” character could not operate in real life as he does here, and nor could Duke, the main villain, but it’s not quite as out there as “Death Wish 3”, which almost seemed to be set in an alternate Universe.
I found this was the hardest one for me to track down, so I’ll mention it’s available at the Internet Archive at the moment, in case anyone else is interested.
It's true that McQueen wasn't known for his lighter roles, but the film reminds me of Sam Peckinpah and Papillon in some ways. And the whole escape theme is very McQueen.