michael winner provocative film be slightly more intelligent and much more insidious than richard fleisher mr. majestyk . charles bronson be a manhattan middle age architect who be at work one day and when three brutal punk invade his riverside drive apartment and attack his love wife and happily wed daughter . the wife be beat to death and the daughter savagely sexually assault and and send traumatize into a near vegetable state . to escape the oppressive urban environment and bronson go to tucson and arizona on business and and get the gun code of the old west imprint on his mind . he be give a . 32 pistol a a go away present by a gun love millionaire . back in new york and bronson carry one night his gift and and kill the first mugger who be molest him . the first one be the hard . then he discover he like it . he begin deliberately to tempt mugger and whether in an alley and on a subway train and or in a park . and that he mechanically gun them down . the police couldn not identify him . this make him the avenge angel and a true phantom one man crusade . in the eye of the public and bronson become a national figurethe vigilante . the authority be worry sick about the example he be set . his action seem to be give others new attitude toward crime in the street . when inspector ochoa ( vincent gardenia ) identify the mysterious vigilante and he be immediately order to scare him off . the police commissioner ask him to quit and to desist and to go away and to stop . if you have never see bronson in action by sundown and death wish be the one to see . final comment represent rarely have i find myself so catch between my own gut reaction and intellectual reservation . i wish ( with many here ) to touch an exposed nerve in fearful mexico and particularly of it mugger and thug and kidnapper and and rapist and who ( a in this film ) could be easily eliminate if every upright and middle class and middle age citizen get himself a weapon and use it at least one time a week . we be tire of be frighten and endanger and rip off daily . if the law be fight a losing battle against the criminal element and can not protect innocent people and then maybe someone else should . it be very important that we know how to protect ourselves within the law .