Messenger of Death

Buy This Item Messenger of Death by MGM (Video & DVD)  Available from Amazon  $12.99  on 11-16-2008     In a sleepy Colorado town, a horrific crime has been committed…and only one man can bring the killer to justice! Action hero Charles Bronson stars as a crime reporter on a relentless search for the truth in this "crisply directed" (Los Angeles Times) suspense thriller! Could a simple feud between brothers lead to the brutal massacre of an entire family? Garret Smith (Bronson) travels to a remote Rocky Mountain town to investigate and uncovers far more sinister motives. As he gets closer to the bizarre truth, Smith unravels a plot of greed, revenge and religious zealotry. But can he get to the bottom of the murders before an "avenging angel" visits him with an equally deadly message? 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: $12.99 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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