Just what we need now: A morally repugnant good-guy-with-a-gun remake directed by vessel of pure id Eli Roth (Hostel). Michael Winner’s original Death Wish is morally questionable (and so divergent from its source material it should have been renamed), but at least central character Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson there, Bruce Willis here, who sleepwalks through the part even more than Bronson) feels somewhat conflicted about the vigilante justice he rains down upon New York City. Updating the location to Chicago—a dog whistle if I’ve ever heard one—this version is a slam-bang, rootin’-tootin’-shootin’ fantasy about Kersey’s revenge on the scumbags who murder his wife and leave his daughter comatose. At least screenwriter and walking hard-on Joe Carnahan, inheritor of the John Milius testosterone mantle, doesn’t let the bad guys rape the women as in the 1974 flick. Roth takes the blunt-object screenplay and dulls the edges further, leaving a tonally deranged and shockingly violent celebration of vigilantism that escapes 1-star judgment for technical skill alone. The scenes in which media figures debate whether Kersey’s actions are appropriate are pure lip service. By David Riedel