Messenger of Death

"Messenger of Death" harks back to a period in Charles Bronson's career when the films he selected to appear in were not almost exclusively preoccupied with the squalid and violent mean streets of "Death Wish" (1974) and the seemingly limitless stream of increasingly pale sequels and imitations it spawned. Bronson rarely participates in any of the action sequences in this film and the story is much stronger and better constructed than usual. The central location of Colorado with its light dusting of snow looks exquisitely chilly and absolutely gorgeous. The most thrilling and exciting of the small ration of action sequences features a Landrover doing battle against two huge tankers and the resulting scene has been superbly put on the screen, but best of all it's good to see Charles Bronson appearing in films which have more substance than we have come to expect.