Charlie's Death Wish (2005 Video) User Reviews

Phoebe Dollar's Hollywood death wish

[Dr. Gore · 22 October 2005]

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

The southern girl with the funky eyes goes to Hollywood to trash the place and every lowlife hustler in it. Charlie, (Phoebe Dollar), has a problem with Hollywood. The City of Angels has sucked up her innocent sister and spit her out. She died in a mysterious jail house "accident". Dollar wants her revenge on all of the sleaze-bags who had anything to do with the death of her sister. She hits the boulevard of broken dreams armed to the teeth to show Hollywood who's running things. Ron Jeremy shows up as a cop who wants to bring down the mysterious vigilante who's bumping off most of L.A.'s gangsters. He better not get in the way or else he'll burn with the rest of Hollywood.

"Charlie's Death Wish" is an ultra low budget revenge flick with a white hot desire to spit in the face of Hollywood. The very first shot in the movie shows the word Hollywood in big neon lights. So right away they've established that Phoebe's massacre will tear its way through La La Land. Later on, as a couple of bad guys make a move for Dollar, she shoots a billboard over their heads which has the word Hollywood plastered across it. The sign promptly falls on them and breaks into pieces. When Dollar really gets mad, she curses Hollywood, rolls her car over the Hollywood sign cliff, and destroys the first two letters in that famous landmark. As Ron Jeremy says, "She took the HO out of Hollywood."

All of this begs the question, who did Phoebe really want to destroy? The evil people who killed her sister or the deceitful town that spawned them and attracts more porno stars, pimps, dealers and thousands of other daydream believers to Hollywood every single day? You can't destroy Hollywood Phoebe. The lure of fame and fortune is too powerful. Your death wish isn't strong enough to compete with the California dream of limousines, swimming pools, perfect weather, beautiful women and a chance to see and be seen on Sunset Blvd with the movie stars.

"Charlie's Death Wish" has an angry Dollar killing as many people as possible. She gives Charles Bronson, (Charlie/Charles Bronson, get it?), a run for his money in the vigilante dept. Many heads will explode before the movie is over. I enjoyed this exercise in B-movie Hollywood bashing. It moved along and gave Phoebe plenty of chances to blow away lowlifes. Jeremy is a fine actor who gets to show off his acting talents as the cop tracking her down. I'm still a little disappointed that Phoebe Dollar has never gotten naked in any of her flicks. What's up with that? She even goes undercover as a stripper but does not strip. Come on Phoebe. B-movie queens should show a little skin in between cracking skulls. Embrace Hollywood and all it stands for. Don't pick a fight you can't possibly win.

Inept, and then some

[Leofwine_draca · 1/10 · 26 October 2017]

CHARLIE'S DEATH WISH is a film even worse than your normal indie nonsense. It's a very low rent thriller filmed in just a couple of locations. Ron Jeremy has a large role and acts seriously for a change, but is hardly anything to write home about. The direction is very poor with random intrusive noises and inappropriate music on the soundtrack. Oh, and Lemmy from Motorhead cameos too. It's cheap looking and static.

Ron Jeremy with his pants on?

[lawfella · 7/10 · 11 June 2006]

Found this one in a collection of low budget DVDs at Best Buy, 6 cheapies for $6.99. Imagine my surprise when I saw Ron Jeremy's name pop up in the opening credits. Had they slipped a porno film into the collection? No! It is really Ron Jeremy in a straight role, following the lead of Ginger Lynn Allen (I guess). And he did pretty well, doing a tongue in cheek L.A cop trying to solve a series of hilariously violent murders.

And about those murders. Seems a girl was hauled into prison one night for some bizarre reason and during her stay there, she happens to have been murdered by some of the other prisoners. Could happen to anyone, I guess, especially when they are in the care of the LAPD. So our victim's lovely sister Charlie (Phoebe Dollar), who gives the old Charles Bronson vigilante film Death Wish the same deference as religious fundamentalists give holy scripture, takes it upon herself to track down and kill everyone involved.

And Ron Jeremy is the detective assigned to the case. He's got a problem -- all of the victims are criminals he hates. He secretly thinks Charlie is doing a lot of good with her murderous ways, and becomes ambivalent about whether or not he ought to stop her. And he keeps his pants on, for the entire flick -- a good thing since he has aged a bit since the days when he cavorted about with the likes of Christy Canyon and Veronica Hart. Not that I have seen any of those movies myself, of course, but, er, I have a friend who told me about them. Ahem.

Also wandering through this film for some reason, though I can't imagine what it might be, is a Michael Moore parody, an NRA-hating documentary filmmaker whose self-described masterpiece was a film showing that Sonny Bono's death was actually a murder, carried out by a conspiracy. Well, why not. He runs an investigation of the murders parallel to Jeremy's, almost complicating the pathetically simple plot.

An odd film to be sure, but more entertaining than you might think. The special effects are often hilarious, Ms. Dollar is slinky and seductive, and yes, there is Ron Jeremy fully clothed. Didn't know he had it in him.