The Stone Killer finds Charles Bronson as a New York detective exiled to Los Angeles after a controversial shooting. While in Los Angeles Bronson discovers bit by bit a massive assassination plot of organized crime bosses. His biggest task is to convince his superiors to keep probing into this.
Martin Balsam is a purist and a Sicilian. 42 years after the famous feud in gangland lore the Castellammarese War he wants to get back at the guys who infiltrated the Mafia. Guys like Luciano and Costello who brought in all kinds of outsiders like Jews into organized crime. A few years earlier in the Kirk Douglas film The Brotherhood he got recruited to avenge the death of his father in that same war by getting a betrayer. Sicilians have long memories, don't forget, and hold grudges. In fact right around this time Joey Gallo was killed and among his sins was bringing in, heaven forfend, blacks into his family as associates.
Balsam is putting this all together for April 10, the anniversary of the last shootings with the help of Stuart Margolin recruiting a lot of disgruntled Vietnam veterans who've learned the trade. Sad to say this was another of those films in the Seventies where everyone who served in Vietnam was labeled a psychotic killer.
There's enough action here to satisfy any Bronson fan including a slam bang shootout with the NYPD and Balsam's picked crew. I will say that there certainly will be a leadership vacuum to contend with.
Martin Balsam is a purist and a Sicilian. 42 years after the famous feud in gangland lore the Castellammarese War he wants to get back at the guys who infiltrated the Mafia. Guys like Luciano and Costello who brought in all kinds of outsiders like Jews into organized crime. A few years earlier in the Kirk Douglas film The Brotherhood he got recruited to avenge the death of his father in that same war by getting a betrayer. Sicilians have long memories, don't forget, and hold grudges. In fact right around this time Joey Gallo was killed and among his sins was bringing in, heaven forfend, blacks into his family as associates.
Balsam is putting this all together for April 10, the anniversary of the last shootings with the help of Stuart Margolin recruiting a lot of disgruntled Vietnam veterans who've learned the trade. Sad to say this was another of those films in the Seventies where everyone who served in Vietnam was labeled a psychotic killer.
There's enough action here to satisfy any Bronson fan including a slam bang shootout with the NYPD and Balsam's picked crew. I will say that there certainly will be a leadership vacuum to contend with.