Mr. Majestyk

Storyline

Mr. Majestyk, Vietnam veteran Vince Majestyk just wants to grow his watermelons and live in peace on his farm. But the local mob boss has different ideas. When his workers are threatened Mr. Majestyk decides to lend them a hand but then the wrath of the mob is turned onto Mr. Majestyk himself. The poor mobsters don’t stand a chance.

A Different Kind of The Usual Tough Bronson

Mr. Majestyk, Charles Bronson’s different in Richard Fleischer’s MR. MAJESTYK than in the early-seventies’ Michael Winner crime trilogy because, for one, unlike THE MECHANIC, THE STONE KILLER and DEATH WISH, Vince Majestyk, a hardworking watermelon farmer, is somewhat of a smart-ass, and, written by Elmore Leonard, there’s a little more breathing-room for the character and his situation/predicament…

A lethal hit man, played by villain’s villain Al Lettieri, wants Majestyk very dead as Paul Koslo’s initially antagonistic Bobby Kopas is more of a talker than a doer. In fact, both Bronson and Lettieri point this out: The first before hitting the goading blond-haired punk in the balls with a shotgun (after having attempted to pawn off cheap labor to his farm), while the latter tries keeping him in line…

As Majestyk goes from a prison cell to stealing a prison bus with Lettieri’s Frank Renda on board. And after an offer he could and does refuse, and a “double-cross” involving Lee Purcell as a Bible-reading moll, the chase is on…

Making the third act a harbinger to the kind of FIRST BLOOD plot-line where the main character uses his own rough, rustic environment to snare more potentially dangerous, city-set criminals unfamiliar with his proverbial mountainous backyard: Not only does he have the higher ground, it’s his ground.

Trading off in quick, stylistic, sparse dialogue; a hint of romance with field worker Linda Cristal; and bloody action sequences that provide more of a foundational distraction than Leonard’s sharper, character-driven tales, MR. MAJESTYK is one of the best 1970’s Charles Bronson vehicles because he shares it with others around him.

Barry Lyndon