Death Wish III (1985)

 'Death Wish III' is the movie in which the franchise goes full Cannon. Over the top, grimmey, violent, 80's action camp. Kersey has spent the years since the 2nd film traveling around the country fighting crime. He goes to a  run down New York City neighborhood to visit an old Korean War buddy. When he gets to the man's place he finds him fatally injured, he dies just before the cops get there and arrest Kersey for the murder. Ed Lauter is the police chief now, he knows who Kersey is and what he has done, but instead of fighting him he offers to work with him. Kersey can fight to clean up his late friends comically crime riden neighborhood, provided he keeps a low profile and periodically briefs the cheif on his efforts. Kersey takes the deal.

Paul goes back to his friends neighborhood, befriends a resident and friend of that firend, Martin Balsam, who had served with their mutual buddy in WWII. Kersey makes friends in the neighborhood, fights crime, including through use of violent 'Home Alone' style traps. Bad things happen to his friends, Balsam's taxi meter repair shop is burnt down, two of the wives in the building are murdered, including a pre Star Trek Counslar Troi (Bill from the Bill and Ted movies is also in this as a gang member). Kersey's blond social worker romantic interest, the lovely cheekboned Deborah Raffin is also killed by the gang.

The last act of the film is a bonkers riot/gang war, wherein Paul uses a World War II machine gun to take on the badies and unit the otherwise law abiding populace to take the law into their own hands. This last bit goes on for about a half and hour, they blow up or burn whole buildings down as part of this sequence, which is amazingly long. In the end the gang is largely decimated, its evil leader blown up by a bazooka, and the surviving gang members leave. Kersey himself leaves shortly after.

This movie is pretty wild, it also can be enjoyed without having watched the first two films, it stands on its own. This is a fun bad movie which gave me strong signs of rewatchability. **1/2.