Messenger of Death (1988)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

J. Lee Thompson

Writers (WGA):

Rex Burns (novel)
Paul Jarrico (screenplay)

Release Date:

21 July 1989 (Denmark)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

What the cops can't do, he will.

Plot:

Wifes and children of the Mormon Orville Beecham become victims of a massacre in his own house. The police believes the crime had a religious motive...

Plot Keywords:

Mormon | Murder Of Family | Dead Boy | Independent Film | Based On Novel

Cast

Charles Bronson	...	Garret Smith
Trish Van Devere	...	Jastra Watson
Laurence Luckinbill	...	Homer Foxx
Daniel Benzali	...	Chief Barney Doyle
Marilyn Hassett	...	Josephine Fabrizio (as Marilyn Hasset)
Charles Dierkop	...	Orville Beecham
Jeff Corey	...	Willis Beecham
John Ireland	...	Zenas Beecham
Penny Peyser	...	Trudy Pike
Gene Davis	...	Junior Assassin
John Solari	...	Senior Assassin
Jon Cedar	...	Saul
Tom Everett	...	Wiley
Duncan Gamble	...	Lieutenant Scully
Bert Williams	...	Sheriff Yates

Runtime:

91 min | Finland:86 min (cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (1989) (cut) | Finland:K-18 (2004) (uncut) | UK:18 | Australia:M (Violence) | Iceland:16 | West Germany:16 | Norway:18 (video premiere) | USA:R | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Colorado National Monument, Fruita, Colorado, USA

Company:

Golan-Globus Productions

Trivia:

This film is not the last Cannon Film that Charles Bronson did but the last one for The Cannon Group Inc. since Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989) was made by Cannon Entertainment.

Goofs:

Continuity: During the car chase, Smith's car is on the inside of one of the tankers on the first corner out of the tunnel, but in the next shot it's back in the middle of both tankers.

Blood and Water Don't Mix

Charles Bronson plays investigative reporter Garret Smith for the Denver Tribune in this motion picture about a blood feud between two brothers, of different Mormon sects. With outside political as well as economic overtones.

A decent story about religious jealousy and the behind the scenes politics of exploiting it. The feud between brothers Willis, Jeff Corey, and Zenas, John Ireland, Beecham is instigated when Willis' son's Orville's, Charles Dierkop, family is massacred. Willis believes that it was the work of Zenas and starts an all out war against his brother which ends with both brothers getting killed. But there's something else that has nothing to do with the feud between the brother's that's central to the story: A lake of artesian water under brother's Zenas' property that can be used to turn common and plentiful shale into valuable and scarce fuel oil.

Charles Bronson is still believable, at age 67, as the tough reporter that gets to the bottom of the story with his fists as well as his typewriter to uncover the truth about Orville's family being murdered. As well as who ordered it that instigated a war between his father and uncle and why.

With the exception of the beginning the movie "Messenger of Death" cuts down on the violence and concentrated more on the story which made the movie more interesting to watch. And also gave the audience more time to think who's behind the murders that happened to the Orville Beecham family which built up to a better then average ending.

The ending of "Messenger of Death" though a bit contrived and what seemed forced still tied the story together and made it believable. One of Charles Bronson's best later efforts when he was still effective as an action hero, or in this case an action reporter, on the screen.