One of Hollywood’s most popular tough guys throughout the 70’s, Charles Bronson would show no signs of slowing down when the 80’s arrived. Well into his 60’s at this point in his career, he was still every bit the convincing tough guy. While fans may argue that his output during the 80’s is of a lesser quality than his 70’s hits, he still worked on a number of enjoyable action thrillers, especially his collaborations with director J. Lee Thompson.
Having just worked for Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus on Death Wish 2 (1982), he would follow it up with another of their productions, J. Lee Thompson’s 10 to Midnight (1983). In fact, Golan and Globus would continue to produce Bronson movies throughout the 80’s under their own company, the infamous Cannon.
It has been reported that Golan and Globus would have piles of scripts which they would then decide would be more suitable as a Bronson vehicle or if they would be better suited to their other headliner, Chuck Norris.
10 to Midnight (1983), like the directors earlier Happy Birthday to Me (1981) focuses on a serial killer. Unlike that film however, 10 to Midnight combines its slasher styled plot with a police procedural, with Bronson as the Cop hunting down the elusive killer.
Originally Bronson was looking at The Evil That Men Do (1984) as being his follow up to Death Wish 2, as he and producer Pancho Kohner had previously bought the rights to the novel. This was not be when Cannon head Menahem Golan decided that the film would be too expensive to produce at the time, forging ahead with another script they held at the time called “Bloody Sunday”.
The title of 10 to Midnight came about due to Kohner’s visit to the Cannes film festival, where he had to sell a Bronson picture but had no actual script. He came up with the title, stating that he knew he would be able to sell it on this alone. Now he just had to find a suitable script, with him, Bronson and Cannon settling on “Bloody Sunday”. This is the reason the title 10 to Midnight has next to no bearing on the actual plot.
Not exactly classic Bronson fare, 10 to Midnight still proved to be a major improvement on his and Thompson’s previous collaboration, the Casablanca (1942) inspired Caboblanco (1980). Whereas that film was sorely lacking in action, 10 to Midnight features enough suspense and thrills to keep Bronson fans happy.
Thompson keeps things moving at a swift pace, with proceedings getting increasingly violent as the film progresses, with no shortage of blood and nudity. As the norm for the director’s work, 10 to Midnight is professionally made, but is far removed from the rather tame standards of his earlier successes such as Cape Fear (1962), which ironically was controversial at the time of its release.
The plot focuses on Bronson and his partner’s (Andrew Stevens) attempts to track down a serial killer (Gene Davis), who murders his victims whilst naked so that he doesn’t leave any evidence. The film takes place a number of years before DNA testing became standard, so this would have been quite an ingenious method at the time.
It turns out that one of the killers’ victims was a childhood friend of Bronson’s daughter. With Bronson disgusted that they can’t get anything on the killer, he decides the only way is to illegally plant evidence on the killer in order to capture him. This only results on the killer getting released on a technicality, with him now on the trail of Bronson’s daughter (Lisa Eilbacher) so he can exact his revenge.
As expected, Bronson is his usual reliable self, with his character of Detective Kessler being the prototypical Bronson character, one who doesn’t mind bending the rules as a means to an end. The only noticeable difference from other Bronson performances was the actor’s decision to have plastic surgery before production, apparently to make him look younger. Let’s just say that it wasn’t entirely successful.
Supporting player Andrew Stevens works well with Bronson, playing his inexperienced partner. He also strikes up flirtatious relationship with Bronson’s daughter, well played by Lisa Eilbacher of Beverly Hills Cop (1984) fame.
This was Stevens second co-starring role alongside Bronson. They both appeared in the earlier Death Hunt (1981), but never really got a chance to share the screen. Here, the majority of his screen time is spent with Bronson.
Stevens had additionally worked with J. Lee Thompson on the television show Code Red (1981), where Thompson had directed the pilot episode.
The other main character of the film is the killer himself, Warren Stacy, memorably played by Gene Davis. Davis is probably better known as the brother of Midnight Express (1978) actor Brad Davis than from any of his film work.
Davis clearly doesn’t have the same level of talent as his brother, but is truly convincing as the deranged killer. He is suitably intense throughout and fearlessly spends a lot of the film naked, although some continuity errors have him wearing underwear in certain shots.
Davis’ part is clearly modelled on real life serial killer Ted Bundy. Like Bundy, Stacy is handsome, going after the same type of victims and even driving the same kind of car, a Volkswagen Beetle.
In addition to the main roles, there are notable supporting parts for the likes of Geoffrey Lewis and Wilford Brimley, with Brimley having worked with Bronson on the previous Borderline (1980).
Also look out for an early appearance from Kelly Preston as one of Davis’ unfortunate victims, with her being credited under the name Kelly Palzis at the time.
10 to Midnight marked the first film of J.Lee Thompson’s to be solely edited by his son Peter Lee-Thompson. He had previously worked as an assistant editor on Caboblanco. He would continue to edit the majority of his Fathers films throughout the 1980’s as well as working on another Cannon production, American Ninja (1985).
As expected, 10 to Midnight received generally negative reviews at the time of its release, with famed film critic Roger Ebert giving it the ridiculous rating of zero stars. The film has since gained a deserved cult following, with most recognising its exploitation movie style charms. While not grade A Bronson, 10 to Midnight should satisfy most genre fans.
Rating: 3.5/5
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