Customer Reviews

The Stone Killer [VHS]

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Great Bronson film loaded with action and great Bronson lines. I truly think he should have gone with this character as his franchise instead of his career ending Death Wish stuff. Bronson gives a great performance and the soundtrack is in the same classic 70's style as Enter the Dragon and Dirty Harry. Also available at Amazon.com, check out the re-mastered soundtrack for The Stone Killer. A must have for fans of the 70's!!! Be advised that this VHS pictured here is recorded in the dreaded EP mode. Time to put this one on DVD.....

Bronson and director Michael Winner warmed up before DEATH WISH in 1973 with this watchable thriller that has its' "gaudy moments" as quoted by Bronson. There are some great lines and where else can you see (Papa Walton) Ralph Waite playing a racist detective in a series of outdated suits? You also get a very young John Ritter in LAPD blue serge and Martin Balsam haming it up (fake Italian accent and all) as the central casting New York Mafioso. THE STONE KILLER isn't great, it isn't awful. It's Bronson!

This film takes it's place right in the tough cop films of the seventies. I place it right in with the likes of The French Connection; Dirty Harry; Magnum Force and Death Wish. Another plus is the movies great sondtrack.

This hard boiled Bronson caper is by no means his best, you'll have to look to Mr Majestik for that, but it is by far the best for Bronson soundtracks. Arranged by mood master Roy Budd, the soundtrack is virtually unavailble. Stone Killer contains the one and only cool sequence created in director Michael Winner's useless career. A scene where a head of a crime family leaves his hotel to go to meeting with other big bosses. It contains the best peice of music on the soundtrack and is worth the price of the video copy alone.

In"The Stone Killer"Charles Bronson plays a rather nasty police detective named Torrey involved in an attempt,by a mafia godfather,to re-write underworld history..Based on the book"A Complete State Of Death"By John Gardener,"The Stone Killer"as directed by Michael Winner becomes a period piece,at once dated and implausible..
Set in the early 1970s,the film includes an unnecessary scene at an"ashram"populated by a horde of stereotypical "hippies"that has absolutely no bearing on the plot,but which was included,apparently,because Winner thought that it would make his otherwise routine action film relevant..Likewise we have a medical doctor spouting off about how the viet-nam conflict alledgedly transforms decent american males into"stone killers"..
Stuart Margolin plays the leader of one such group of"stone Killers",who have contracted with an elderly mob boss,played by Martin Balsam,to murder all of the other mob bosses,apparently in some sort of bizarre revenge over a similiar incident that had taken place almost 50 years previously..That a mob boss would wait almost half a century to kill a bunch of rival mobsters because other,long dead mobsters had killed his
countrymen nearly half a century earlier makes no sense..That this mob boss would contract his mass execution out to a group of non-mafia ex-servicemen makes even less sense...
Sure,the flick is long on action,and has a nice score by the late Roy Budd,but it has more holes in it's plot that a whole wheel of swiss cheese.

This is a great Bronson Movie. They don't make movies like this anymore. No political correctness here. Raw Bronson they will never show this on TV so buy the video for full effect.

From that curious period when 70s films still looked a bit like they were shot in the 60s and when some cops still wore hats, The Stone Killer is a pretty decent pre-Death Wish Michael Winner-Charles Bronson film that doesn't do anything new but does it well enough for an hour-and-a-half to make for an efficient enough Saturday Night Special. Bronson's the New York cop whose trigger-happy reputation gets him transferred to LA, where he stumbles across a big case when a prisoner he was escorting to his old stamping ground gets hit before spilling the beans about a hit he was going to be involved in himself. And not just any old hit - Martin Balsam's mobster is taking a leaf out of Lucky Luciano's book and recruiting `an army without faces,' Vietnam veterans with no connection to organised crime, to take his long-brewing revenge for the 1931 `Night of the Sicilian Vespers' murders that ended the Castellammarese gang war 42 years earlier (the film gets the date wrong, citing 10th April 1931 rather than 10th September 1931, but hey, it's a Michael Winner film, you expect fact-checking?).

It's a decent enough hook for a cop movie, and it moves fast enough to keep you from thinking too much about the odd plothole. Bronson's on good form while Winner's direction hadn't yet got as lazy as it would by the end of the decade, though the shadow of the boom mike does have a recurring cameo even in the widescreen version. (Winner also includes a nod to film critic Gordon Gow, who worked on Films and Filming when Winner was a fledgling film critic there, in a PA announcement in a hospital scene.) The odd interesting face pops up in the supporting cast - Stuart Margolin and Paul Koslo as mercenaries, The Waltons' Ralph Waite as a racist cop who's waiting for hats to come back in fashion, Norman Fell and a young John Ritter as cops a few years before they co-starred in Three's Company and regular character actors like Walter Burke and Charles Tyner - while Gerald Wilson's script gives most of them enough to do to make an impression even if no-one's on award-winning form here. Throw in a great car/motorbike chase, some decent action scenes, a funky Roy Budd score and the odd bit of obligatory post-Dirty Harry society's going to the dogs and the criminals are winning speachifying and the result is one of the better disposable cop movies of the 70s.

Sony's PAL DVD is completely extras-free, but does at least boast a good widescreen transfer.

This is a great Charles Bronson movie for those who are fans. Although it is old the quality of the image is good.
The sound is in Stereo.

The Stone Killer, directed by Michael Winner ,starring Charles Bronson as Lt. Torrey, a tough cop who takes no s--- or bullets,in this case Torrey is quicker on the draw or you might say a little trigger happy, never hesitating to eliminate anyone who stands in the way, as it may be the mafia. Martin Balsam is the head honcho inviting all the local mafia dons to a birthday party while Bronson follows the tracks and leads while bullets are flying and bodys are falling. The Stone Killer, isn't lacking in action,just a very confusing plot of who's who and Martin Balsam is not very convincing as a mob boss,probably miscast, Norman Fell, as the police captain does an exceptional acting job,and Charles Bronson is his usual self,this is a Columbia Tri-star VHS,with your normal VHS quality,not remastered, so you get the original old transfer of the film.

It's always a treat to watch a Bronson flick. He was one of a kind. With that being said, this effort by director Michael Winner is solid, but not great. Still,Bronson delivers in his role as a determined cop trying to take on the mob. It was also nice to see the late Norman Fell and a young John Ritter in supporting roles. Based upon the book "A Complete State of Death" by John Gardner. If you're a Bronson fan, check this one out! You won't be dissapointed.