Death Wish (2018)
Dr. Paul Kersey
Paul Kersey, who lives with his wife Lucy and college-bound daughter Jordan, works as a trauma surgeon at a Chicago hospital. After having lunch at a restaurant, Paul gives the keys to his car to a valet, Miguel, who secretly takes a picture of their home address from the car’s navigation software after overhearing when they will all be out one night. Later, while Paul is working late at the hospital, three masked men invade the Kersey’s home. Jordan and Lucy return home and are both shot and Paul learns at the hospital that Lucy died and Jordan fell into a coma.
Police Detective Kevin Raines is tasked with the case, but Paul soon becomes frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation. One night, Paul comes across two thugs harassing a woman and tries to intervene but gets beaten. Paul then visits a gun store, but when he sees he’s being videotaped, he decides to leave without purchasing anything. When an injured gang member is brought in to the hospital and his Glock 17 falls off the gurney, Paul steals the gun and then uses online videos to learn how to maintain and use it. Eventually, Paul uses it to stop a carjacking, a video of which goes viral; Paul is dubbed Chicago’s “Grim Reaper”. His reputation as the “Grim Reaper” soars even higher after he kills a drug dealer known as “The Ice Cream Man”. When an unconscious Miguel is hospitalized, Paul recognizes his stolen watch around his wrist. After Miguel dies, Paul takes Miguel’s phone and discovers a photograph and a text on it suggesting that a liquor store is where the thieves bring and re-sell their stolen goods.
Paul visits the liquor store, but the owner, Ponytail, realizes who he is, secretly messages an accomplice for backup and reaches for a gun. Paul stabs him with a dart and demands the goods stolen from his house. Ponytail’s accomplice, Fish, arrives and accidentally kills Ponytail. After shooting Fish, Paul learns from him that Lucy’s killer is an auto body shop worker named Joe. Fish kicks Paul and gains the upper hand, but is stunned by a falling bowling ball, allowing Paul to kill him. At the auto body shop, Paul ambushes Joe while he is working under a car. He tortures Joe for information by cutting his sciatic nerve with a scalpel and pouring brake fluid into the wound. Joe divulges that their leader, Knox, shot Lucy. Paul then removes the jack holding the car up, causing it to crush Joe’s head.
Paul receives a phone call from Knox, telling him to meet him in a bathroom at a nightclub. When he arrives, Paul calls the number back and hears it ringing in one of the stalls. He shoots through the stall door, only to find that it was a ruse. Knox opens fire from the other end of the bathroom and the two engage in a shootout, which results in both injuring each other before escaping. After going home and encountering his brother, Frank, Paul is informed by the hospital that Jordan has regained consciousness. A week later, as Paul brings Jordan home from the hospital, Knox talks to both of them in the hospital elevator. Jordan does not recognize Knox, but Knox tells Paul he’ll see him around. Paul returns to the gun store to legally purchase weapons to defend his remaining family.
Sometime later, Knox and two other thugs prepare to invade Paul’s home at night. Paul glimpses a man running across his lawn and hides Jordan in a closet under the stairs, telling her to call the police. After killing the two thugs in the upstairs bedroom, Paul heads into the basement, where he suspects Knox is located. There, Knox emerges from the darkness, shoots Paul in the shoulder and threatens to burn Jordan alive. When Knox is distracted by Jordan yelling out her father’s name, Paul retrieves a fully automatic M4 carbine assault rifle from a hidden compartment under a coffee table and shoots Knox dead. When the police arrive, Detective Raines suspects that Paul is the “Grim Reaper”, but pretends to buy his story because he’s satisfied that justice was served and because Paul subtly informs him that his “Grim Reaper” days are over.
Months later, Paul drops Jordan off at NYU. As Paul is leaving, he spots a man who steals a bag from a bellhop, calls out to him and points at him with a finger gun.
