Product Description

In a sleepy Colorado town, a horrific crime has been committed…and only one man can bring the killer to justice! Action hero Charles Bronson stars as a crime reporter on a relentless search for the truth in this "crisply directed" (Los Angeles Times) suspense thriller! Could a simple feud between brothers lead to the brutal massacre of an entire family? Garret Smith (Bronson) travels to a remote Rocky Mountain town to investigate and uncovers far more sinister motives. As he gets closer to the bizarre truth, Smith unravels a plot of greed, revenge and religious zealotry. But can he get to the bottom of the murders before an "avenging angel" visits him with an equally deadly message?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59856 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-02-04
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
Charles Bronson stars in yet another tale of murder and vengeance. After the brutal massacre of a Colorado family, reporter Garret Smith (Bronson) investigates the blood feud between two brothers of an isolationist Mormon sect, only to uncover a conspiracy that leads to the heights of Denver society. Messenger of Death aspires to be some mixture of Witness and Chinatown; the movie has a workmanlike structure, but there's not much inspiration to be found. Bronson, puffy-faced and graying, isn't doing much more than earning a paycheck. Also featuring Trish Van Devere and Daniel Benzali. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

I was IN this movie!
Although this B-film was a bomb, it was fun and a learning experience to participate in a movie. It's great fun to see yourself onscreen, even if you have to fast-forward through the first ten minutes of gore. It kind of ruined movies for me for a couple of years because I would analyze how a scene was shot and the 'magic' was gone. However, I will treasure my copy of the film forever because a dear friend who has since passed away is standing next to me in the train station scene (I'm the lady in the camel hair coat and black hat). The most redeeming thing about this film is the scenery. Shot in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, the views are breathtaking. Makes you want to vacation in Colorful Colorado!

Above average by Bronson standards
Be warned, this review may be biased. You see it was partly filmed in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, my home of twenty five years. In one scene Mr. Bronson's Garrett Smith, a Denver reporter solving a brutal family murder, is walking downtown speaking with the local sheriff when a large Chevy truck passes them. I'm happy to report that truck (mine) and its driver (my dad) are both alive and well. While Mr. Bronson is sadly not, fans of the square jawed tough will certainly enjoy this film. It may not be "Death Wish", or even "Mr. Myjestyk"; "Evil That Men Do" though, it is not.

The plot centers on a massacred family in the Colorado hills. The husband/father is the lone survivor and the head suspect. Everyone suspects foul play, but no one is Aticus Finch enough to confront it, which sometimes puts Bronson in some absolutely ludacris situations. If I told you that there was a shootout involving two sides of a family with multiple deaths, your last guess as to the man who would sue for peace would be Charles Bronson--but he does. In this regard his character is equivelant to his Danny in "Great Escape"; he uses his brain to solve problems and lets everyone else blast away. Yes, we're thinking of the same Charles Bronson.

What follows is a complicated (sometimes silly) view of Mormonism, corruption in city politics and family feuds. Worth the price of admission though, is the film's pure 1980's small town Americana texture. Cars are very, very ugly and there were more STDs than SUVs at the time of filming. Vehicles also are, along with everything else, brown. Clothes, hairstyles, houses and buildings, all brown and all better left a score ago. Let's call it an ugly decade and move on huh?

This is one of the few films where Charles Bronson hardly fires a shot in anger. Yes he's a reporter, but he's also Charles Bronson, and Charles Bronson wouldn't back down from a fight if he played Nathan Lane in Birdcage and only had 2x4 as a weapon. He may be a reporter, but then again the pen is mightier than the .357 Magnum.

Bronson searches for a mass murderer.
An investigative reporter (Charles Bronson) tries to unravel the mystery behind the assassintation of an entire Mormon family. An above average murder mystery with action scenes, Messenger of Death is flawed only by an ending so abrupt it's nearly comical. Still I recommend it to the former action superstar's fans.