It’s important to remember that as ridiculous as this film and the low-rent series it spawned seems now, it also seemed that way to critics in 1972.
— Kenneth Lowe (Paste Magazine)
During a 2015 rally in Tennessee, in the wake of the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, Trump [finally] cajoled his acolytes into cheering, “Death Wish! Death Wish!” A political rally rife with irate white men brandishing guns, chanting the name of a vigilante film about a wealthy white man who guns down poor minorities, and who goes unpunished by the police: it would feel too obvious, too on-the-nose, if it were a scene in a film, and yet it somehow makes sense in a world that elected Donald Trump as President.
— Greg Cwik (Reverse Shot)
Synopsis: After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.