Paul Kersey

Paul Leonard Kersey is the protagonist of the Death Wish film series and was played by the late Charles Bronson. He became a vigilante after his wife and daughter where attacked by hoodlums, and would follow on in this path for a big part of his life.

Death Wish
Paul Kersey was a successful architect in New York City and was married with a grown up daughter. Shortly after returning from a holiday in Hawaii, Paul's wife and daughter where followed by hoodlums after working at a store and where attacked at their apartment. His wife was badly beaten and his daughter violently raped. Paul arrived at the hospital with the shocking news his wife was killed, and daughter severely traumatized.

After returning from a business trip Paul discovers his daughter isn't getting better and begins to question the way police handle crime. One night Paul hits a mugger with a sock full of quarters, which causes the guy to run off with nothing. When Paul opens a present he receives a gun, and goes out one night by himself. He is cornered by a mugger who demands money by a pier, and Paul answers him by shooting the attempted mugger dead. He later kills a gang of muggers in an alleyway beating up a man, and this causes the police to start connecting the vigilante crimes. Paul's influence causes the average innocent people to start defending themselves and commit their own vigilante acts and the crime rate in muggings especially begins to drop.

One night Paul is cornered by muggers and manages to shoot some of him but ends up taking a bullet himself. Paul pursues the last mugger, but collapse from his wound. Lt. Frank Ochoa who was working on the vigilante case gives Paul an ultimatum that he should leave New York and the case will be dropped. Paul takes up the offer and transfers to Chicago.

Death Wish II
Years later Paul moves to Los Angeles and is engaged. His daughter makes a recovery and is able to speak and navigate properly. However a gang who mugged Kersey break into his house, rape his maid and kidnap his daughter. She later ends up dead when she jumps from a window trying to escape them. During the course of Death Wish 2 Paul begins tracking down the thugs, killing them off. This is somewhat a change in his character, as his sole mission is tracking down these group of thugs rather than dealing with any other crimes not related to him. However by the end of the film its hinted he returns to his old ways as gunshots can be heard when stalking the streets. By the end of this film Paul's fiancee leaves him, deducing he was responsible for the crimes.

Death Wish III
In Death Wish 3 Paul arrives back in New York to visit a friend from his army days, who is killed by a group of thugs belonging to a gang who has been terrorizing the neighborhoods. Paul is arrested by police under false pretenses he killed his friend, but Paul is released by Lt. Richard Shriker who tasks Paul with cleaning up the gangs, but to report to him afterwards so the police can issue a story. By the climax Paul kills off the gang's leader Manny Fraker, and is allowed to walk away by Shriker before police arrive to deal with mass rioting in the streets between gangs and the neighborhood.

Death Wish IV
In Death Wish IV: The Crackdown Paul is back in Los Angeles. His girlfriend's daughter overdoses on drugs, and a man named Nathan tasks Paul with destroying two major gangs dealing in drugs. Paul completes the task, but its revealed Nathan is in fact a drug dealer himself looking to get rid of the competition. At the end Paul's new girlfriend is killed by Nathan, and Paul retaliates by killing him.

Death Wish V
In the final Death Wish film, Paul returned to New York under witness protection.

Death Wish (2017)
In the 2017 remake. He played by actor Bruce Willis.

Trivia

 * Paul is based off the character Paul Benjamin from the Death Wish book.
 * Although not made, there was plans for a Death Wish 6 however it wasn't to have Charles Bronson back as Paul Kersey.
 * The television show The Simpsons made reference to Bronson's Death Wish character in the episode "A Star is Burns". Here the character of Jay Sherman was going to review Death Wish IX, which featured Kersey laying in a hospital bed wishing he was dead.