Charles Bronson was an action hero star of the Death Wish film series. In my younger more impressionable days I enjoyed the site of Bronson dealing with problems by using a gun (like the one shown above) to the extent that I was saddened when he died. Some of my favourite Bronson films include the Mechanic (probably his best), Death Wish, The Great Escape and Mr. Majestyk to name just a few. Sure, these kinds of movies probably won’t win an academy award (scratch the Great escape) but I learned a great deal from watching the old fox in action.
1. How to deal with a mess
When life throws you a mess what you do you do to handle it? It would be easier to for me to give it to you as a scenario:
Bronson is dealing with some punks who are stealing his car.
He says, ‘What’s the problem?’
They respond, ‘Hey, we are stealin’ the car… what do you care?’ Bronson then looks at them and says, ‘Well it’s my car.’
The punks made their first mistake by producing a knife and saying, ‘your going to die.’
Wasting no time on the paralysis of analysis Bronson smokes the two assailants without battering an eyelid. The mess no longer exists. They produced a knife, Bronson produced a gun… BLAM BLAM and he has got his car back… no mess… no fuss. End of problem solving exercise.
Lesson: For every complex problem there is a higher order solution that dissolves the conditions that cause it to exist.
2. There is power in numbers
How do you react when you are disadvantaged? How does Bronson do it? He finds people just like him and works with them to get the job done. He might form a Dirty Dozen or be part of a Magnificent Seven or just looking to the make the Great Escape. Bronson recognises there is power in numbers.
Lesson: Don’t take on the world yourself when there are others that can help bring change.
3. How to deal with young disrespecting punks
No, I didn’t cover this in 1. I am of course referring to The Mechanic. In this movie Charles Bronson plays an ageing hitman who trains Jan Michael Vincent to follow in his footsteps. Along the way he shows promise, if not a little rebellion and Bronson appears to suspect nothing when he suddenly finds himself in trouble towards the end of the movie (spoilers warning!).
Bronson collapses to the floor choking from the poison that Jan Michael Vincent’s character just fed him and we the viewer are horrified to see Bronson done is such a perfunctory manner. I mean, this is the man that can solve New York’s crime problems but isn’t able to manage this young upstart. As the young man leaves the dead Bronson to go downstairs we see him start his car … which then explodes in a ball of flame. The young man was outfoxed by the older one.
Lesson: Youthful exuberance can’t match old wisdom.
Sure, Bronson’s movies always rely on ‘at-hand’ solutions, easy escapes, violent fantasy and ‘man’ size guns to fix problems but that doesn’t mean the underlying logic is always that bad. I mean as a fan of 1970′s and 1980′s action films I learned a lot about how we would like to solve problems like crime through movies like the Death Wish series. The ideal that one man can make a difference, that there is hope for a better world (on the end of the .44 Magnum?) are not really clever ideas BUT they do make you think. Perhaps the question you need to ask yourself is why do we enjoy movies like this so much if we live in such a great world?
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