Evil That Men Do, The

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3.5/5The Film

A fun and surprisingly sleazy Charles Bronson vehicle from 1984, The Evil That Men Do, one of quite a few collabroations between Charles Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson, was previously released on DVD by Columbia way back in 2002 in a lousy fullframe transfer. Hen's Tooth has seen fit to put the disc back in print and this time in its original 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio. Bronson fans, rejoice.

When the film begins, the sinister Doctor Molloch (Joseph Maher) is somewhere in South America torturing a political prisoner (by electrocuting his balls!) to demonstrate to the evil political types gathered around him just exactly the best way to do it. Molloch is a bad man, and you just know he's going to have to pay. Cut to a remote tropical island and witness Holland (Charles Bronson), a retiree living the good life and hanging out with a giant fish friend named Quasimodo on the beach. Holland soon has an unexpected visit from a man in need of his special services hoping that he can convince him to come back into action and take out the doctor. When Holland initially says no, he tells him that a mutual friend has been killed and then he shows him tapes of various people who have been tortured by him. Having seen enough, Holland teams up with a fake wife named ‘Nancy' (Theresa Saldana) and a fake kid, to theoretically make him a convincing tourist, and heads to Mexico.

Upon his arrival, Holland starts trailing Molloch and his various accomplices. He first spies him and his sister attending a lovely cockfight and once he's got a tail on them, he puts his plan into motion - this is a plan that involves pretending to be interested in having a threesome with a big black dude, trying to twist a giant Mexican guys balls off, hiding under a bed while Molloch's sister has a lesbian encounter, blowing up some cars, throwing a dude off of a balcony with a hose tied around his neck, and shooting some people. In short, much ass-kicking and righteous vengeance ensues.

A deliriously trashy and disturbing introductory scene sets up the carnage to follow and while the film may slow down a bit in the middle part, but the time the gory finale rolls its way to the screen you'll have probably forgotten about the periodic pacing issues. Bronson is in pretty good form here, thankfully playing the role almost completely straight and with a minimum amount of wise cracking. This gives his character a nice edge that works in his favor and makes his performance here work. He isn't quite as nastily stone faced as he has been in other films, but whatever, he comes close enough and his fan base will get exactly what they want from him in this picture while the interesting supporting cast top lined by a chillingly effective Maher fill in the blanks rather well.

The story isn't really breaking any new ground here and Bronson isn't asked to do anything we haven't seen him do before or after this picture was made but The Evil That Men Do hits all the notes you would want a mid-eighties drive-in/action picture to hit. There's enough wanton and careless violence to compliment the oddball moments of trashy sleaze and Bronson's screen presence and tough guy persona fit in well with the world that the writers have placed him in. It works well enough that we'll forgive the whole ‘living on a beach with a pet fish' angle and just thank them for the carnage.

Note: This appears to be the full strength version of the film with the extra blood and gore intact. For more information and some screen caps, click here!

0/5Video

3.5/5Audio

1/5Extras

3.5/5Overall

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Film Rating		DVD Rating
Director:	J. Lee Thompson	Film:
Writer:	David Lee Henry, John Crowther	Video:none
Released:	1984	Audio:
Cast:	Charles Bronson, Antoinette Bower, Roger Cudney, Joseph Marrer, Jose Ferrer	Extras:
		Overall: