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The Evil That Men Do (1983)

Dir: J Lee Thompson

The late, great Charles Bronson plays retired assassin Holland Smith who is persuaded by an old friend, Dr Lomelin (Jose Ferrer), to get back in the game to kill a brutal, sadistic torturer for hire Dr Molloch, known as 'The Doctor' (Joseph Maher), who has recently tortured a Journalist friend of Smiths who was prying into Mulloch's affairs in a South American country

With the help of the Journalist's Widow, Rhiana (Theresa Saldana), he sets off on his mission to kill the evil Doctor……..

 

Simple plot. Gets to the point, gets the job done, and that's perfect for this type of trashy entertainment.
But don't let that trashy remark fool you, this isn't trashy in bad way…This is trashy in a fine way. Brutal, exploitative, crowd-pleasing.

The screenplay by David Lee Henry and John Crowther (based on the novel by Lance Hill) piles on the South American clichés with wild abandon.
And in creating a genuinely effective atmosphere of the paranoia and danger of life under a Militaristic Dictatorship it's pretty successful. But in covering the techniques of a professional assassin it is not.
Here Holland handles his dangerous infiltration of the country to reach his target by sticking out like a sore thumb as often as possible.
Worst offender for this is the sequence at a rowdy, dusty cockfight full of yelling peasants and workers in full arm waving, hat tossing mode.
Holland watches 'The Doctor' and his goons while sitting silently in a suit, with the worried looking Widow of the Journalist 'The Doctor' murdered sitting on one side (in a nice summery dress), and a known enemy of the Government 'The Doctor' works for (also in a very nice suit) sitting on his other side.
All of them looking serious and not moving a muscle. Lets just say his mission would really have ended there.
And why Holland never simply shoots 'The Doctor' with a sniper rifle is a mystery indeed.

But hey! This is Trash Cinema that is here to entertain and deliver those exploitative goods…So logic be damned and on with the meaty stuff.

Like the previous years "10 To Midnight" (also directed by Hollywood veteran J Lee Thompson, who went from jolly romps like "An Alligator Named Daisy" to classic, renowned movies like "The Guns of Navarone" but ended his career churning out some of these top notch Bronson exploitation thrillers) this film is startling in it's violence and gratuitous scenes (though not quite up to the level of "10 To Midnight's" delightful nastiness).
The opening torture of the Journalist is shocking in it's drawn out brutality as the man is stripped, chained in a harness and electrocuted via electrodes attached to his nipples and scrotum, before dying in a blood spewing spasm.

Add some bloody knife violence, splattery bullet hits, some superbly ruthless violence by Holland and a truly satisfying blood drenched finale and you have a film that, although it has plenty of plot/dialogue passages, delivers the expected explicit action. And watch out for Bronson coming to outstandingly painful 'grips' with one unfortunate!

Made as Bronson's career was starting to wind down as a really top box office draw (though the popular "Murphy's Law" and "Death Wish 3" and one of the best "Death Wish" sequels, Death Wish 4" would briefly halt the fall into TV movie land) "Evil" still shows up his excellent, if simplistic by this time, screen presence.
Big Chuck is like the aforementioned plot. Gets the job done while being solidly entertaining.

Maher as the truly sadistic 'Doctor' is also effective. Giving his character just the right mix of cold brutality and whining self-pity.

The rest of the cast is not much more than average, but no one really detracts from the films' entertainment.

The key to the films overall success though is that it piles on as many interesting events and characters as possible (the overly sentimental sequences between Bronson and Saldana aside).
Why have just ordinary goons when you can have one of 'The Doctors' Male bodyguards be a sin seeking bi-sexual? Who, in a wonderfully entertaining scene is propositioned by Holland for a threesome with Rhiana! As big, butch hard man Bronson holds the guys hand and suggests a bit of fun my jaw dropped and when I picked it back up…it helped form a big grin.
And why not have 'The Doctors' equally nasty Sister/assistant get her kicks from Lesbian quickies in the afternoon with leather miniskirt wearing young ladies?
Why not indeed. It all adds to the trashy thrills (and some jolly full frontal female nudity) and that's what we're here for after all.

Bronson's late 70's-80's films (despite still being popular with the film going audiences for the most part) were pretty much dismissed or ripped to pieces by critics (1975's "Hard Times" being the exception) but this was never really fair.
"Death Wish" for example was a more intelligent, thoughtful and realistic film than given credit for (Paul Kersey never finds the actual attackers of his family, and indeed for a lot of the films running time there is little violence and it is mostly a drama about a Man trying to come to terms with his loss).
"Mr Majestyk" was a bizarre joy and is still a much enjoyed cult vehicle, and films like "10 To Midnight", "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects" and "The Evil That Men Do" are honest in their exploitative, marvellously trashy content and are fine entertainment for any lover of movies, be they big, small, worthy or cheesy.

Seek this little gem out and spend 90 trashy and entertaining minutes with the much-missed Mr Bronson.