The original 1974 film 'Death Wish' was intriguing. Liberal, mild mannered architect Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) becomes a violent, vengeful vigilante after his wife is murdered and daughter traumatized in a gang rape. The first film has authorities discovering that Kersey is the killer, but agreeing to let him go if he stops what he's doing an quitley leaves town. That movie ends with Kersey relocating to Chicago with the intimation that he will continue his crime fighting there.
Cannon Films, which I think you could safely call an explotation house, acquired the rights to make Death Wish sequels, the first coming out in 1982 and set roughly 4 to 5 years after the events of the first film. Paul's Chicago stay has ended and he has again relocated. He is now in LA, working on a building project for a radio station, has a reporter girlfriend (Jill Ireland, Bronson's real life wife at the time), and has brought his daughter out to California for treatment, she is making progress and has finally started talking again, though not at any great length.
Kersey's wallet is stollen by a group of hoods, including a young Laurence Fishburn, who go to his house, knock him out, rape and murder the family maid, kidnap and rape his daughter, who is then killed trying to escape. This sets Kersey off on revenge mode again, he procedes to hunt down and kill the responsible gang members. The LAPD reaches out to the NYPD for help given their experience with a remarkably similar vigilante some years before. They send Lt. VIncent Gardenia from the first film out to stop Kersey, but in the end he joins forces with his target in order to stop a gun deal, the Lt is killed in action. Shortly after that Kersey kills the last of the gang members, but his reporter girlfriend figures our he's the vigilante and leaves him, though she never turns him in.
'Death Wish II' has a particularly mean, roughly first third, the remainder of the film is alternately okay and pretty good. Uneven but this is a better film then I'd expected it expect it to be. **
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