An upcoming tough-on-crime vigilante movie is now Exhibit A of “alt-right” racism, according to the reliably left-wing U.K. newspaper The Guardian. The remake of the popular 1974 action-family vengeance-drama Death Wish, with Bruce Willis cast in Charles Bronson’s shoes as the tormented hero, is scheduled for release around the Thanksgiving holiday. But is it just a fascist alt-right fantasy?
Guardian critic Graeme Virtue piece was one long piece of virtue-signaling and throat-clearing, an apparent requirement for movie critics these days, not even getting around to addressing the entertainment value of a movie with content that may possibly offend some liberal interest group somewhere (months before it’s even coming out).
The article’s subtitle laid it out: “The trailer for Eli Roth’s revival of the action franchise has been accused of being ‘nakedly fascist’ in its story of vigilanteism in a volatile Chicago.”
Roth directed the naïve-backpackers-in-Eastern Europe horrorshow Hostel, and his new project may be his “latest and most high-profile project -- a long-in-the-works resurrection of the Death Wish franchise with Bruce Willis as the trigger-happy lead -- has attracted even sharper criticism than usual. The launch trailer has sustained heavy fire on social media, called out for being “nakedly fascist” and being compared to “alt-right fan fiction.”
To mix animal metaphors, the trailer does make the rebooted Death Wish look like a depressing frog chorus of alt-right dog whistles. The setting has been shifted from New York to Chicago, a city currently struggling in real life to cope with a resurgent murder rate while being attacked by Donald Trump on a weekly basis....
Virtue lumped everyone on the right with Nazi sympathizers:
Could Roth deliberately be courting the alt-right dollar? His 2015 jungle cannibal movie The Green Inferno received some unexpectedly admiring notices from pro-Trump publisher Breitbart, who seemed tickled that the gnawed-on victims were students whose conservation activism was a pose. But despite his crass creative impulses and glib comments, Roth is an unlikely cheerleader for the alt-right. He makes a searing screen appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds as Donny Donowitz, a second world war soldier who goes a little further than just punching Nazis. The formidable “Bear Jew” specialises in clubbing them to death with a baseball bat.
Virtue seems to be saying that Breitbart readers wouldn’t appreciate watching a movie showing a Jew attacking a Nazi during World War II, which is both ignorant and offensive. Perhaps Virtue is unaware that anti-Semitism has always had a huge following on the left and that most conservatives are supporters of Israel.
Here's the trailer. Judge for yourself:
Virtue predicted the remake is “likely to be embraced by right-wing activists in the run-up to its November release, if only because it has already enraged so many liberal commentators....all the more appealing to dudes who fantasise about white men taking charge through violence.”
Virtue pointed out that the New York Times greeted the original in 1974 as “a bird-brained movie to cheer the hearts of the far-right wing.”
Nice to see the New York Times hasn’t changed.
