Customer Reviews

Messenger of Death

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although this B-film was a bomb, it was fun and a learning experience to participate in a movie. It's great fun to see yourself onscreen, even if you have to fast-forward through the first ten minutes of gore. It kind of ruined movies for me for a couple of years because I would analyze how a scene was shot and the 'magic' was gone. However, I will treasure my copy of the film forever because a dear friend who has since passed away is standing next to me in the train station scene (I'm the lady in the camel hair coat and black hat). The most redeeming thing about this film is the scenery. Shot in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, the views are breathtaking. Makes you want to vacation in Colorful Colorado!

An investigative reporter (Charles Bronson) tries to unravel the mystery behind the assassintation of an entire Mormon family. An above average murder mystery with action scenes, Messenger of Death is flawed only by an ending so abrupt it's nearly comical. Still I recommend it to the former action superstar's fans.

After a string of sleazy action flicks with Chuck(Evil That Men Do, Murphy's Law, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown), director J. Lee Thompson seemed like he wanted to do something a little different with his next Bronson picture. Messenger Of Death is a little more on the drama/suspense side than action. Sure it's got bits of action here and there, but most of the film has Bronson trying to get to the bottom of a brutal murder. It's not terribly exciting, but it certainly isn't a bad film. I guess I'm just used to the vigilante Bronson, which is unfortunate coz he's capable of more than that. But this movie won't give you anything you haven't seen before, although it certainly makes mormons out to be a creepy bunch. Bronson really doesn't turn on the Bronson until the last five minutes or so of the film, but he does it with that flair we all love. All in all, not too bad, but it's main function will be to make your Bronson collection larger.

Be warned, this review may be biased. You see it was partly filmed in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, my home of twenty five years. In one scene Mr. Bronson's Garrett Smith, a Denver reporter solving a brutal family murder, is walking downtown speaking with the local sheriff when a large Chevy truck passes them. I'm happy to report that truck (mine) and its driver (my dad) are both alive and well. While Mr. Bronson is sadly not, fans of the square jawed tough will certainly enjoy this film. It may not be "Death Wish", or even "Mr. Myjestyk"; "Evil That Men Do" though, it is not.

The plot centers on a massacred family in the Colorado hills. The husband/father is the lone survivor and the head suspect. Everyone suspects foul play, but no one is Aticus Finch enough to confront it, which sometimes puts Bronson in some absolutely ludacris situations. If I told you that there was a shootout involving two sides of a family with multiple deaths, your last guess as to the man who would sue for peace would be Charles Bronson--but he does. In this regard his character is equivelant to his Danny in "Great Escape"; he uses his brain to solve problems and lets everyone else blast away. Yes, we're thinking of the same Charles Bronson.

What follows is a complicated (sometimes silly) view of Mormonism, corruption in city politics and family feuds. Worth the price of admission though, is the film's pure 1980's small town Americana texture. Cars are very, very ugly and there were more STDs than SUVs at the time of filming. Vehicles also are, along with everything else, brown. Clothes, hairstyles, houses and buildings, all brown and all better left a score ago. Let's call it an ugly decade and move on huh?

This is one of the few films where Charles Bronson hardly fires a shot in anger. Yes he's a reporter, but he's also Charles Bronson, and Charles Bronson wouldn't back down from a fight if he played Nathan Lane in Birdcage and only had 2x4 as a weapon. He may be a reporter, but then again the pen is mightier than the .357 Magnum.

Charles Bronson is in my opinion the best action movie star because he didn't LOOK the type. he didn't have over-bearing muscles and a majority of his characters were appealing to the "common man" who felt helpless in the face of the system. on this tale, Charles plays a reporter named Garret Smith who investigates the brutal murder of two women and a group of little children. the murder opens up this movie and we see who does it so this isn't a mystery figure to the viewer that Charles is looking for. the fun is watching how the police and the newspaper are going to solve the case. Charles wouldn't be the same without some tough love and he dishes it out as only he can. the movie ended without a wrap-up or a conclusion. it simply ended with a murder...i won't say who. the entire movie is based on a family feud, mormons, relgious zealots, the Colorado Water Company, and two outsiders who stand to gain from the family feud. it's a complex story and it's the kind of Bronson film most people wouldn't like because it requires a person to think like a criminal or an illogical person. most viewers generally root for the cop or the good guy, right? when you deal with oddballs and deranged killers like Bronson does in mostly all of his movies, the "good guy" HAS to do things illogical or things that don't make sense in order to get in the mind of a crook and therefore solve the case as the movie progresses. having said that, "Messenger of Death" is one of Bronson's last great action movie. this movie came out in 1988 and i think that 1989 was his last big year as far as the box office goes. i could be wrong but after "Kinjite" in 1989, i can't recall any other movie of his pulling the sort of money at the box office one requires to make to land in the Top-20 list? i'll do some research on that subject later on. meanwhile, catch this movie because it's entertaining and that's the key element.

Messenger of Death makes a much better swansong for the pairing of Bronson and Thompson than their last collaboration, the dire Kinjite. The kind of film that would be a cable movie today and which didn't trouble movie theatres for long on its way to video back in 1988, there's nothing particularly special about it, but Bronson made so many bad movies near the end of his career that it's always a pleasure to come across a half-good one. In something of a throwback to his early TV series Man With a Camera, Bronson's a crime reporter (albeit a modern-day one) whose investigation of a brutal massacre of a family of Mormons soon uncovers two breakaway cults lead by brothers John Ireland and Jeff Corey whose vicious blood feud is being exploited by the local water company. There aren't many surprises, the performances veer from competent (Bronson, John Ireland) via misjudged (Daniel Benzali) and hammy (Laurence Luckenbill) to just plain over the top (Corey) and the rushed ending is pretty awful, but for the most part its well directed and just well crafted enough to pass an hour-and-a-half entertainingly enough.

The only extra is a brief trailer.

There's a little more of a "detective/thriller" vibe in Messenger of Death than in some of Bronson's other movies of the period but that's not a bad thing IMHO. It's just a little different from the usual vigilante formula and that's fine by me. I enjoyed this one.

This movie must the most boring one ever mande, period. I tried to watch it when it was on TV, but it was so BORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING!