Messenger of Death

Buy This Item Messenger of Death by Starz / Anchor Bay  Available from Amazon  $5.99  on 11-16-2008     Charles Bronson stars in yet another tale of murder and vengeance. After the brutal massacre of a Colorado family, reporter Garret Smith (Bronson) investigates the blood feud between two brothers of an isolationist Mormon sect, only to uncover a conspiracy that leads to the heights of Denver society. <I>Messenger of Death</I> aspires to be some mixture of <I>Witness</I> and <I>Chinatown</I>; the movie has a workmanlike structure, but there's not much inspiration to be found. Bronson, puffy-faced and graying, isn't doing much more than earning a paycheck. Also featuring Trish Van Devere and Daniel Benzali. <I>--Bret Fetzer</I> Reader Reviews 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.

Messenger of Death Available from Amazon Price: $5.99 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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