Cinema's most rugged tough guy, Charles Bronson, threads his uncompromising coolness through a tight weave of car chases, shootouts and bare-knuckle brawling in this gritty, forceful action film (LA Herald-Examiner)! Bronson stars as Majestyk, an ex-con and Vietnam vet whose efforts to run a farm are thwarted by narrow-minded locals and corrupt cops. But when a Mafia hitman (Al Lettieri) destroys Majestyk's crop, the farmer's fuse is finally blown. With his rifle in hand and his girlfriend (Linda Cristal) at the wheel, he goes after the syndicate assassin. And from high-speed back-road chases to an explosive backwoods confrontation, mobster and maverick stalk each other: two of a kind, antagonists to the death.
Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson) absolutely has to get his watermelon crop in, come hell or high water, and nothing in the world is going to stop him. Trouble comes, however, in the form of Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo), who tries to force Majestyk to use a crew of winos rather than Majestyk's hand-picked migrant crew. After Majestyk cleans his clock, Kopas swears out an assault complaint, and soon the melon grower finds himself in the county lockup. In jail he meets hit man Renda (Al Lettieri), and the two regard each other with hostility and suspicion. In a segment worthy of action director John Frankenheimer, Renda's pals try to break him out of a prison bus in a street shootout. Instead, Majestyk commandeers the bus and drives off with Renda, with the intention of using him as a pawn to get the charges dropped on himself...so he can get his melon crop in, of course. The script for Mr. Majestyk was written by none other than Elmore Leonard himself, and the rhythms of his hard-bitten prose are clear throughout. As expected with a Leonard story, there are plenty of plot flip-flops and more than a little tongue-in-cheek humor (the flinty Bronson even gets a few of the good lines). A word of warning: Vegetarians and those with sensitive temperaments may be disturbed by the machine-gun slaughter of hundreds of defenseless watermelons, in one of the movie's more sublime scenes. It's not great stuff, but Mr. Majestyk is a fast-moving '70s action flick that doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't above a blithely ridiculous plot device or two. --Jerry Renshaw
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
I love this guy!:
grew up watching a lot of Charles Bronson and this is one of my favorite ones. Also check out "Hard Times" Hard Times and "Breakout" Breakout
Don't tick off the watermelon man;:
Bronson says and does it all in this one, now charles has made some great movies in his career. But this one does stick out from a lot of his other great hits. Please own this movie you won't be disapointed in doing so, he takes no crap from no rednecks, and yes there's rednecks in this one. Now Bronson does have his way of dealing with them, I'd be doing it the same way. A great job well done and it's too bad that he's passed on, but he has left us some great movies for the future for us to own. I miss the... more info
The Watermelon Man:
"Mr. Majestyk" is a classic of sorts in that it's the only film in history (of which I'm aware) to portray a watermelon farmer as the hero. Watermelons suffer the most during the violent moments in this Elmore Leonard penned film when bad guy Al Lettieri's thugs blast Charles Bronson's crop with machine gun fire, but Bronson gets his revenge in a memorable finale. I found it a little hard to believe that mob hitman Lettieri would be so determined to avenge himself against Bronson rather than flee to... more info
Classic:
It's Charles Bronson being Charles Bronsony -- the story/acting is sometimes corny, but in the end, if you even have an inkling to see this movie, then you'll probably get a kick out of it. Great ending.
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