Whenever I watch a movie I inevitably go to Letterboxd to see what other people think of it. Letterboxd is like social media for movie nerds. You can log movies, see how many movies by an actor you’ve previously watched, check out stats (it is what I use to write all my movie journal posts), write reviews, and much more. You can also follow other users and when you do it will automatically show you their reviews.

I follow a lot of movie critics and various other users whose reviews I like to read, or who tend to have similar tastes as me. It is always interesting to see what others think of a movie I’ve just watched. It is especially interesting when their opinions differ from mine. It is fascinating to me to see when people hate a movie I loved for love a movie I hated.

I thought Death Hunt was dumb. It is the kind of movie they made a lot of in the early 1980s – silly action films with a couple of big stars, a little sexy, some comedy, and a lot of gunplay and explosions. I’m not necessarily opposed to that sort of thing as you can see from my reviews of various Burt Reynolds movies, but I have to be in the right mood.

I guess I wasn’t in the right mood yesterday when I watched Death Hunt because looking at Letterboxd most of the reviews I saw seemed to think it was a pretty fun movie. You can read between the lines that no one thinks it’s an actual good movie, but entertaining isn’t always good.

Anyway, the film is set in the Yukon Territory way up North in Canada in the 1930s. Albert Johnson (Charles Bronson), on his way home from a long stint in America, comes across an organized dogfight. The losing dog is badly injured and its owner, Hazel (Ed Lauter) is ready to do it in. Albert stops forcibly stops him then pays him $200 and takes the dog home.

With Albert gone Hazel finds his courage and reports the incident as a dog theft to Edgar Millen (Lee Marvin) of the local Canadian Mounties. Edgar is of the old and grizzled but fair and kind variety (in the Lee Marvin type). 

Edgar knows Hazel and figures his story is bupkis, and tells him to go away. Hazel doesn’t like that and takes a group of his buddies up to Albert’s cabin to give him what for. Albert, being played by Charles Bronson, takes their what for and gives it back, leaving one guy dead on the ground.

Now that a man’s dead Edgar has to investigate, but instead of going to Albert alone and having a chat he takes an entire posse with him, including Hazel and his friend – all armed to the teeth with shotguns and rifles. His cabin surrounded Edgar walks up to Albert’s place to ask him to come alone peacefully. When he refuses Edgar lets the men shoot the cabin to bits. When that doesn’t work he throws dynamite at it, blowing the thing sky high.

It was probably at this point that I gave up on the film. Blowing a man’s house (and presumably him) to pieces isn’t good police work. Especially when you know that the killing you want to arrest him was probably self-defense. But the film wants them to have a chase and so that’s what it gives them.

Amazingly Albert survives the explosion and hits the road (or rather the icy mountain paths) with Edgar hot on his tail. The rest of the film becomes one long chase.

Made just a couple of years after Death Wish, Death Hunt is clearly trying to cash in on that film’s success. But Death Wish had a specific point of view. In those films, Charles Bronson is a good guy driven to revenge by evil criminals (don’t get me wrong that film’s morality is wonky as hell, but it does have a point of view). Here Albert is a rather dubious character and as noted Marvin isn’t exactly clean cut so there isn’t an obvious person to root for. Except the film clearly wants us rooting for someone, it just doesn’t seem sure as to who. This brings it all to a finale that just kind of whimpers where it ought to bang.

I’m putting way too much thought into all of this, more than the creators of the film seem to have done. It is all meant as a good time at the movies with a little comedy and some big action and good stars and nothing more. This is too many words already, but I should mention Carl Weathers plays Lee Marvin’s good time buddy. Oh, and Angie Dickinson plays Marvin’s love interest, who has so little to do I almost forgot about her.

I suspect if I had poured myself a couple of drinks and invited some friends over I would have had fun with it. But sitting alone on my couch while my wife is upstairs with Covid and my daughter is hiding out in her room I found it all kind of vapid and annoying.