Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Ed-Shullivan I liked director Michael Winner's The Stone Killer but the more I thought of the style of this 1973 crime/action film my memory went right back to two other action films of a similar heritage and their respective directors/stars which made me feel like this film was more or less just a cheap imitation of the following two classic action movies. I am referring to director Don Siegel's 1971 crime/action classic Dirty Harry starring Clint Eastwood as Detective Harry Callaghan who reprized his role a few more times with even greater success. The other film I am remembering is director Peter Yates 1968 classic Bullitt which starred Steve McQueen as San Francisco Police Lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When I was watching Charles Bronson drive recklessly through the city streets of New York as he was chasing actor Paul Koslo (the bad guy) who was riding a motorcycle, my mind immediately reflected on Steve McQueen's classic car chase scene with his 1968 Ford Mustang racing through the steep hills of San Francisco. Now THAT was a car chase that director Peter Yates made for the record books that audiences are still talking about more than 50 years later.There was also an earlier scene in The Stone Killer where Charles Bronson who plays Detective Lou Torrey is interrogating a suspect in the police precinct behind a closed door and he punches the suspect a few times such that his suspect nicknamed Jumper (played by Jack Colvin) has his face swell up and Jumper tells Detecive Torrey "Heh, stop, you can't do that I know my rights" So Detective Torrey calls in the policeman stationed in front of the door and he asks his fellow officer if he sees any swelling or bruising on Jumper's face and the police officer says "not a thing". So we just witnessed police brutality by Charles Bronson. I bring this up because again I was reminiscing about the style that Clint Eastwood's character Harry Callaghan would dish out street justice. Clint Eastwood's style of dishing out his form of street justice was just so much more memorable than Charles Bronson's as Clint always seemed to deliver his beatings not only with gusto but you anticipated (maybe even salivated over) that Harry Callaghan was going to whup this bad guy and you didn't want to miss this next scene for anything. I cannot say that Charles Bronson's delivery as detective Lou Torrey was memorable, but just adequate. I am not criticizing Charles Bronson who is one of my favorite action heroes (he has so many memorable and great films) but I blame a rather dull film on director Michael Winner who I believe was trying to emulate both directors Peter Yates (1968 Bullitt) and Don Siegel (1971 Dirty Harry & 1973 Charley Varrick) styles on the action screen.If it were not for Charles Bronson starring in The Stone Killer I probably would have dropped my score down another notch or two. It's an okay crime/action film but not a memorable one. I rated The Stone Killer a 5/10.

SnoopyStyle Mafia don Al Vescari (Martin Balsam) seeks revenge against the heads of criminal families around the country using a team of Vietnam vets. Police detective Lou Torrey (Charles Bronson) loses his job after the death of a young suspect. He gets a new job in L.A. He stumbles upon Vescari's plan and starts investigating with Daniels (Norman Fell).This has some darker police drama. It's not the most thought out but it works. There are some interesting bad guys. Bronson would do Death Wish the year after. The movie climaxes with lots of crashing cars, gunfire, and general fire in an underground parking lot. It's a fun, action-packed, exciting ending to a fine crime drama.

zardoz-13 "Death Wish" director Michael Winner knocked the bottom out of the tough guy cop movie genre when he cast Charles Bronson in this Sicilian mafia revenge caper. As steel-jawed Police Detective Lou Torrey, Bronson gets in trouble early when he shoots a kid with a gun. The mafia are staging an attack on their own kind. The car chase where Bronson leaps a car through a gas station is pretty cool. Winner never lets the pace lag in this exciting actioneer. Stuart Margolin has a great role as a commando leader who doesn't believe in luck. The mafia massacre is staged with finesse. Based on the novel A Complete State of Death.

Enforcer686 You either get Old Stone Face or you don't. I get him. He played virtually the same type of character in every movie from the '70s forward, although his character's profession changed from time to time. Didn't matter if he was an unflinching streetwise cop that walks outside the law to bring justice, an architect, or an amazingly tough journalist that can beat up bad guys as easily as normal people breath air (how often do you see that?), he was always a character that looked out for what was right, the law be damned. And no mamby pamby metrosexual stuff anywhere in sight.....This movie was interesting to me in that it was filmed during the prime of the '70s Cop Movie glory days and also happened to be part of the golden age for Bronson himself. I dig the terrible period clothing, hair and lingo. I also dig the neo-psychedelic soundtrack. It was rather amusing seeing Bronson amongst the young hippie burnouts at a wacked out party when he was searching for clues, talk about a fish out of water! And even way back then, the ever popular grouchy old Italian mobster stereotype was in full play, although this was one of the first Bronson films to do this (and it often resurfaced in his movies, even in Death Wish 4 decades later). It also featured several familiar faces including "Mr. Roper" of Three's Company as a cop(!) and "Jack Tripper" of the same show as a bumbling, inept rookie cop. Those with either sharp memories or an extensive Twilight Zone collection will recognize Mob Boss Vescari as the star of the much loved wax figures episode (New Exhibit).You're not going to see Oscar type performances in a Bronson film, but then again, that's not what they were shooting for. You do get a glimpse of a great period of gritty American cop films. They didn't have the internet to help them. No GPS. No Google maps. Just coffee, steel revolvers, typewriters and good old fashioned investigational work, and of course real cars that were driven to death by stunt men, not computer generated crashes. And you do get politically incorrect, 150 proof MANDOM of the kind that isn't made any more. And that makes for an enjoyable Sunday afternoon in my book.