Weekend Double Feature: Crime on the Streets

Welcome to the Fancast Weekend Double Feature! Free movies, free fun, and you’ve got the best seat in the house - your house. Sit back, relax and take in some classic movies.

This week, we’re taking a look at two sides of street crime. First up is the vigilante punishment meted out against drug addicts and criminals by Charles Bronson in the seminal Death Wish. That’s followed by Matt Dillon ringleading a gang of dopers through hopped-up lives of small-time lawbreaking in Drugstore Cowboy.

But first, check out some Coming Attractions!

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Death Wish

Charles Bronson found himself a franchise when he starred in this 1974 film as Paul Kersey, a liberal architect in New York City whose life is shattered when a drug-fueled gang of thugs (including Jeff Goldblum in his film debut) break into his home, kill his wife and brutally rape his daughter, leaving her in a coma. Kersey’s grief and anger run so deep that the kind soul he once was is gone, leaving only a man obsessed with getting revenge, to the point of stalking the streets and killing every mugger and criminal he finds. The vigilante punisher Kersey would return in four sequels, but none were grittier and more real than the first.

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Drugstore Cowboy

The other side of the crime coin are the drug gangs, and they’re not all the crazy evil types that Charles Bronson would hunt down and kill. Some of them are just out looking for a thrill, such as those in Gus Van Sant’s breakthrough film. Matt Dillon is the leader of one such gang of addicts, which also includes his wife Kelly Lynch, the slow-witted James LeGros and a teenage junkie Heather Graham. They spend their time robbing pharmacies to feed their habits and outfoxing their archenemy, a cop named Gentry (James Remar), content to live their lives on the run. That is, until somebody ODs, forcing everyone to stop and take a look at themselves… and figure out which way they’re going to go.

MORE MOVIES:

See what’s on tap this weekend nationwide and in carefully selected theaters.

To purchase tickets, visit Fandango.

And for more free movies on Fancast, click here.