I have seen many bad movies, but I think for some reason I tend to see more of them when I hang out with Travis. However, we usually end up watching them all the way through. There's just something about crappy movies that make them compelling even when they stink; they just have to have a special kind of badness to make them worth watching. Here's one such movie. Enjoy!

Zack: Death

Travis: Wish

Zack: 3.

Travis: Deather than Death itself.

Zack: Death saves the Jews!

Travis: Was this the movie about the young boy who sets out to find his true family?

Zack: Uhhh...I think that was Air Bud.

Travis: Oh, right. This is the one with Charles Bronson.

Zack: Ok, let's try something. The plot in ten words or less; you go first.

Travis: Bronson comes to town to clean up the violent youth.

Zack: Old people take their place as the future of America.

Travis: Only to die three years down the road. The end of humanity! Anyways, yeah; the kids have taken over this urban setting, and the only way anything's going to change is if the elderly, led by Bronson, take up guns and fight back.

Zack: Pretty much, this really is like Heston and Reagan made out on tape. I like how they see the obvious age bias and try to cover it up by saying repeatedly how they only hate punks. But if you're under 45, you're dead basically.

Travis: Yeah, there aren't any nice young people, no kids just out of college. Just blacks, Hispanics, or dirty whites.

Zack: Maybe the gang all went to the School of Hard Knocks and majored in bad acting. And, the white dudes are by far the dirtiest. There was no one on the level of that guy with the glasses in Only the Strong though.

Here, we see Bronson's character as a hardened yet emotionally fragile man on the verge of a breakdown.

Travis: Donovan was the greatest. Everyone needs to watch that movie. Speaking of bad acting, it's a shame you can't write Bronson's awful accent.

Zack: This is one of those things though where you hear it made fun of and you're sure it can't be that bad.

Travis: Exactly, like Bushisms. There's no waaaaay he said those, but he did. Charles Bronson really does shoot people in this movie and then walk off whistling.

Zack: Another important mechanism of the plot was the love interest. How believable did you find it that the Social Worker liked the guy who shoots people from a block away?

Travis: Bronson to social worker: I...will...make love...to you...but first...i must...shoot you. Don’t forget to mention the time he shoots those people who are robbing his car or something. Was Death Wish 4 where he finally got granted his wish?

Zack: There was a 5 too unfortunately.

Travis: Yowzaz. Is Bronson even still alive?

Zack: I think he and God are a few years apart as far as age goes. But even if I saw him today I probably wouldn't mess with him.

Travis: But is he really a hard ass, or just someone who couldn't get anything better than the Death Wish quintilogy?

Zack: I'm not sure, but he's not soap opera material. I have a hard time picturing him being anything besides grizzzzled. Those extra z's are for emphasis.

Travis: Or maybe Heston just gave him a hummer in exchange for such blatant propaganda.

Zack: You damn dirty ape.

Travis: Have you seen Soylent Green?

Zack: It's made of people!

Travis: He consistently wears scarves.

Zack: Which was the style at the time.

Travis: Nothing says gun totin' NRA president like scarves. And I'm talking primo girliness.

Zack: Mel Gibson's character in the first Lethal Weapon is kinda like Bronson when you think about it...but he evolves into not being bitter and crazy. I think the fact that Bronson played the same character for 5 movies is amazing.

Travis: Yeah, and that he somehow only spoke like 4 times in all 5.

Zack: I should explain my Death saves the Jews comment.

Travis: Oh, I'm sure the Jewish and the dead readers won't be offended! But explain if you must.

As the plot progresses, he meets his true love, and shows subtle yet rich signs of growing confidence and happiness.

Zack: There are these two old people who are archetypal New York Jews who are deeply terrorized by the local ruffians. They were my favorite characters because they allowed Reggae Thug to come in through their window.

Travis: Wasn't this right after they'd been forced to give up their guns?

Zack: Yep. And Jimmy Carter stole their sammiches!

Travis: And Reggae Thug is like, "Now that you got no gun, I can come in here anytime I want!" and then he like leaps out the window with a cape or something. Like, seriously, the absence of a gun in a civilian's life in DW3 is conspicuously life-altering. If you don't have a gun, even if you have no idea how to use it, you WILL be robbed by faux-scary dreadlocked men.

Zack: But the movie reaches a climax when street warfare breaks out. From these scenes, I am thinking we should be cloning Bronson and sending him to Baghdad.

Travis: Some scene with a Kurdish couple who've been forced to give up their gun, Saddam Hussein leaping out the window after shouting to them, "I can take anything I want now!" just flashed before my eyes.

Zack: That movie could get made these days I’m betting.

Travis: But back to the climax; meaning the peak of ridiculousness.

Zack: Yeah...just none of it makes sense. And the movie loses novelty value because the characters are too busy yelling to say bad dialogue. And as far as this genre, I'm not opposed to it on principle. The Dead Pool is a great movie because it's so raw and upsetting.

Travis: Which is why I hear the first Death Wish film is actually pretty decent. Bronson could make a good killer. But he's a horrible crusader.

Zack: I think it could have been okay if they had just had him be a killer. But all the characters around him just don't seem to grasp that he is an android. The best way to summarize most of the interaction is that he'll kill someone, and someone declares him a hero, so he grunts and walks away.

Travis: Even the sex scenes go that way. But I'm glad I hadn't seen DW when I saw DW3, because part of the comedy for me was the idea that there were so many of these horrible Death Wish movies being made. That's much funnier to me than a corrupted franchise.

Zack: It makes me wish that he hadn't been pigeonholed so much. Like if he had made some more money, he could have been offered different roles "just because". I want a Kindergarten Cop with Bronson.

However, his joy is short lived. Here he mourns the loss of his lover, his facade crumbled and grief displayed for all to see.

Travis: Yeah, and I guess that does suck, but it's CHARLES BRONSON! The man is one of the greatest comedians I've ever seen. Arnold did his Death Wish type movie with Commando. Man, was that awful.

Zack: And Collateral Damage, and the 6th Day.

Travis: Luckily haven't seen any of those. I did see End of Days. Poor Kevin Pollack.

Zack: Wasn't Gabriel Byrne in that too?

Travis: Poor Gabriel Byrne.

Zack: Yeah, all I have to say about any Arnold film is this: "UP AND AT THEM!"

Travis: But see, it could've been made fucking amazing had Bronson been in there as like Arnold's landlord who used to be a priest, and gets pulled back into the spiritual war, pulls out an AK47 and goes into the action with Arnold.

Zack: There would have to be a plucky orphan played by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen in there too. Title theme performed by Babyface.

Travis: And token Kid-Who-Whispers-Louder-Than-He-Speaks, as tokenated by Haley Joel Osment.

Zack: They cloned him for Unbreakable, you know.

Travis: Film directed by the same guy who did R Kelly's porn.

Zack: Ah, but who's playing the hard independent lady-cop who learns that she needs a man to succeed in the world?

Travis: Ellen Burstyn! Or maybe Kevin Sorbo in drag.

Zack: So we close on a crane shot of her and Charles kiss on the shores of hell....while Arnold and Mary Kate hit the road with a dog wearing sunglasses.

Travis: Divine lightning crashing in the background, as the '94 hit from Live's Throwing Copper cues up….roll credits.

Zack: Our movies are so much better than real ones dude. We're a national treasure. So why all the hating?

Travis: That I don't know. But I'll tell you what we need to get respect in the movie industry: GUNS.

Zack: OK, tell Jared to pull the white van around and let's show them what for.

Travis: Child molester-chic, here we come!