Characters in the Death Wish films:
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Kersey Family
Paul Kersey
Paul Kersey
"It's like killing roaches. You have to kill 'em all, otherwise what's the use?"
Played By: Charles Bronson
"I mean, if we're not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when they're faced with a condition of fear, do nothing about it, they just run and hide?"
A mild mannered architect and Korean War veteran from New York who started killing criminals after his wife and daughter were attacked inside his own apartment. He started his vigilante career by killing small-time bad guys (muggers, rapists etc.), moved to street gangs and by the end of the series takes on heavily armed mafiosos.
- Adaptation Name Change: His last name in the book was "Benjamin".
- Adaptational Job Change: An accountant in the book, but a architect in the films.
- Anti-Hero: When you are a vigilante who murders bad guys, this kinda comes with the territory.
- Badass Longcoat: Breaks out a black leather one now and again, especially prevalent in the fourth movie.
- Berserk Button: While Kersey kills all crooks equally, he gives far worse punishments to rapists, muggers and drug addicts/dealers, all of whom were responsible for his greatest tragedies.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Who would have thought that some nebbish architect would end up taking down several criminal organizations?
- Cartwright Curse: No woman is safe from harm around Kersey, least of all members of his family. Except for Geri, who left him due to his violent lifestyle.
- Cool Old Guy: Charles Bronson was already in his fifties when he first played the role and Paul is roughly the same age, with an adult daughter and son in law, and he only gets cooler and tougher as the films go on, ending the series in his seventies. He even gets an introductory scene to show that he's in excellent shape for a man his age.
- Crusading Widower: The entire thing began when he lost his wife to scumbags, and it just gets worse when his daughter joins her in the second movie.
- Does Not Like Guns: At the start of the first film, he feels this way. He grows out of it.
- The Dreaded: What he becomes over the course of the first film, and taken to ever growing heights in the sequels, making even high level criminals frightened of running into him.Fake Nathan White: "As long as Kersey's breathing he's dangerous!"
- Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of the fifth and final movie, he finally manages this, avenging his murdered fiance Olivia and saving her daughter Chelsea, regaining custody of her, before vanishing into the darkness with a promise to a sympathetic detective that he will return if he is ever needed again.
- Freudian Excuse: His pacificism and intense dislike of guns is due to his father being killed in a hunting accident and Paul not wanting his mother, who hated guns, to go through the same.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: A more Anti-Hero example. Started out a mild mannered liberal pacifist and conscientious objector who didn't like guns, until the rape of his daughter, murder of his wife and the incompetence of the New York police. This and a business trip to Arizona, being reintroduced to guns and offered another perspective on them, ends up setting him on an escalating trajectory to ultimately becoming the scourge of God against America's criminal underworld as a famous, legendary Vigilante Man waging a one man war on crime and inspiring others to do likewise.
- The Gunslinger: A handgun is his weapon of choice.
- In-Series Nickname: Mr. Vigilante, the New York Vigilante in the first film.
- Manly Facial Hair: Charles Bronson's famous, manly mustache remains ever present on Paul through the series, even as it turns a salt and pepper shade.
- Nice Guy: Despite his nightly profession as a Vigilante Man, he is generally an affable, kind man to others by day, treating most people respectfully until they don't deserve an ounce of it.
- Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter Carol takes her own life in the second film after being sexually assaulted a second time.
- One-Man Army: What he ultimately becomes over the course of the movies, and all the experience he gets hunting and killing criminals, especially prevalent in the third and fourth movies.
- Pacifism Breaking Point: He was a conscientious objector during The Korean War, but after his wife was murdered and his daughter brutally gang raped, he turns into a nighttime urban vigilante shooting criminals in the streets of New York and other cities.
- Part-Time Hero: Does architect work when not shooting criminals.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: His weapon of choice in the first film is a .32 caliber nickel Colt Police Positive revolver, and he uses another revolver in the final film.
- The Stoic: He's a kind man of few words and not very emotional, letting his actions do the talking for him.
- Took a Level in Badass: Starts out a mild mannered liberal pacifist who becomes an amateur Vigilante Man in the first movie, then a professional vigilante in the second, then an urban Rambo in the third and then basically Agent 47 and a Chess Master in the fourth. By the fifth and final movie, although he doesn't kill as many criminals, it is clear even at his advanced age he is a legendary vigilante who retains his skills and cunning, focusing on the quality of his kills over the quantity.
- Unwitting Pawn: In the fourth film he becomes this after seemingly being hired to avenge a wealthy man's daughter who overdosed, against the L.A. criminal drug trade. It is revealed the man who hired him was a criminal competitor to those Kersey had been killing. Though Paul breaks free of this when he outlives his usefulness to the man, and in turn kills him and wipes out his criminal organization as well.
- Vigilante Man: The iconic urban vigilante, who set the standard for vigilante flicks to come.
- Villain Killer: He makes it a point to subtract baddies. After his wife is killed and his daughter raped into a vegetative state, Kersey goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge on the punks responsible, plus quite a few other nasty no-goodniks in the process, in various cities he has visited. His Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? approach to street crime makes Kersey into The Dreaded among Chicago's hoodlums. Several criminal organizations fall because of him.
Carol Kersey
Carol Kersey
Played By: Kathleen Tolan (Death Wish) & Robin Sherwood (Death Wish II)
Kersey's daughter.
- Adaptation Name Change: In addition to the change in her last name, in the book, she was married and took her husband's last name "Tobey".
- Break the Cutie: A very tragic example. Her Trauma Conga Line begins with a home invasion by a random gang of hoodlums that results in her rape and the murder of her mother, understandably leaving her traumatized and afraid of being touched by even her father and fianceé. She gets better by the second film (despite remaining mostly mute), but another gang of criminals with a grudge against her father kidnap her and rape her once again, causing her to jump out a window and fatally impale herself on a fence to escape them.
- Cute Mute: By the beginning of the second film, she has recovered from the worst phase of her catatonia and trauma from her rape and the death of her mother in the first film, but has graduated to this trope.
The Law
Frank Ochoa
NYPD Lieutenant Frank Ochoa
Played By: Vincent Gardenia
A detective who investigates Kersey's killings.
- Enemy Mine: In Death Wish II, he saves Paul Kersey from a hidden sniper targeting him, and then performs a Heroic Sacrifice helping Paul take out members of Nirvana's gang, despite being on loan to the LAPD from the NYPD to track Kersey down and stop his vigilante spree.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: He is an opponent of Paul Kersey throughout the first film and much of the second film of the Death Wish series, but he gives Paul a chance to disappear at the end of the first film, and then saves him from Nirvana in the second film at the expense of his own life.
Villains
Manny Fraker
Manny Fraker
Played By: Gavan O'Herlihy
The leader of the unnamed street gang in the third movie.
- Ax-Crazy: After he meets Paul in the cell, he tells him that he'll kill an old lady, just for the hell of it.
- Big Bad: Of Death Wish 3.
- Bulletproof Vest: Was the only one smart enough to bring one of these to the final battle against Kersey, and it helps him shrug off a full round from both Kersey and the police chief. Not enough to save him from the mini-bazooka Kersey had on hand, however.
- Facial Markings: Just like his cronies, the mark of his gang is on his forehead.
- Gangbangers: Leads a group of particularly vile ones that are terrorizing New York.
Nathan White
"Nathan White"
Played By: John P. Ryan
The person who hires Paul Kersey in the fourth film to take down the major drug rings in Los Angeles. He is actually an ambitious drug dealer under the identity of an absentee news magazine mogul, who seeks to take over the local drug businesses by tricking Paul to do the dirty work for him.
- Big Bad: Of Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.
- The Chessmaster: This guy uses Kersey and his vigilante tendencies to eliminate his rivals in the drug trade. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of painting a target on his own head after trying to kill Kersey and kidnapping one of his love interests.
- Diabolical Mastermind: He's one of the only villains in the Death Wish series who manages to run rings around Kersey (and even use him to completely destroy all of the local drug competition), and probably comes the closest to killing him of any other antagonist aside from the previous film's Manny Franker.
- Easy Impersonation: He impersonates the real Nathan White (who's off on vacation in Europe for most of the film) and just has his henchmen and himself wear fancy suits, speak and act formally, and use White's mansion. It completely fools Kersey, but then again, the ruse only needed to last until the rest of the drug business was dead and "White" could try and off Kersey.
- Manly Facial Hair: It's even better than Kersey's, and he's one of the most dangerous opponents Kersey's gone up against.
- No Name Given: His real name is not revealed.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Tries to kill Kersey off by trapping him in a car with a bomb after he finishes off the last of the drug trade (and by extension the last of his competition). Unfortunately for him, it fails and he pays with his life.
Tommy O'Shea
Tommy O'Shea
Played By: Michael Parks
A mobster in the fifth movie, who brings Paul Kersey back into the vigilante game by killing his new wife-to-be.
- Big Bad: Of Death Wish V: The Face of Death.
- The Don: He made his way through Irish gangs to be a boss of his own outfit.
- Final Boss: The final villain of the Death Wish series.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: His mocking (and later torture) of Big Al for being fat and Reg for being black certainly qualifies.
- Sinister Shades: Prefers to wear Elton John-inspired shades in his public appearances.
- Smug Snake: A slimy, Irish mobster, he always manges to escape prosecution because he has a mole in the D.A's office but once Kersey gets his sights on him, he acts like its' a minor annoyance. Even when his dragon Chicki warns him not to underestimate Kersey, O'Shea is far too confident in his plans. Sadly, his overconfidence proved to be his undoing, as he wasn't savvy enough to realize he was a villain in a Death Wish movie and therefore, doomed.
