10 to Midnight * (1983, Charles Bronson, Lisa Eilbacher, Andrew Stevens, Gene Davis, Geoffrey Lewis, Wilford Brimley) – Classic Movie Review 7484

Old Charles Bronson is back with his usual director J Lee Thompson, once again back on the streets on the Death Wish-style vigilante beat in the basic, derivative, routine and violent Eighties thriller 10 to Midnight, made and released by Yoram Golan and Menahem Globus’s Cannon Films in 1983. It is grim and gloomy thriller entertainment.

Bronson plays veteran Los Angeles Police Detective Leo Kessler, a Dirty Harry-ish cop who works outside the law when a serial killer psychopath, Warren Stacy (Gene Davis), starts going around killing women who reject him. The psycho then targets Bronson’s daughter, Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher), and it becomes personal in a cat-and-mouse game between Bronson and the killer. Andrew Stevens co-stars as the idealistic rookie detective Paul McAnn who teams up with Kessler.

10 to Midnight is brutal, nasty, violent and perverse without being original, intriguing, exciting or remarkable, though it is handled briskly, professionally and efficiently by Thompson, as expected from the director of The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear (1962). William Roberts’s screenplay is based on a story by J Lee Thompson.

Also in the cast are Geoffrey Lewis, Wilford Brimley, Robert F Lyons, Bert Williams, Ola Ray, Kelly Preston, Cosie Costa, Paul McCallum, Jeana Tomasina, June Gilbert, Arthur Hansel, San Chew Jr and Katrina Parish.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7484

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