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It still feels strange to say out loud that Bruce Willis has dementia. The kind that doesn’t just take memory but speech, identity, everything. For someone who was once the face of action films, it is a brutal thing to wrap your head around. You don’t have to be his biggest fan to feel it.

The moment the news broke, the world stumbled a little. Because even if you haven’t watched a Bruce Willis film in years, you knew exactly who he was. And now, the films we have feel less like entertainment and more like… reminders.

That’s probably why Death Wish is trending again on Netflix. It is not his most iconic work. It is not even from his prime. But it sticks because it reminds you how he could fill the screen just by being there.

The film follows Paul Kersey, a trauma surgeon in Chicago whose life collapses overnight. A home invasion leaves his wife dead and his daughter in a coma. The cops are drowning in unsolved cases, and the system just shrugs. So Kersey does what Bruce Willis’ characters tend to do: he takes matters into his own hands. As usual, you keep waiting for the classic Bruce moment, like a smirk or a one-liner, but it doesn’t come. He just… shuts down. And that’s what makes it harder to watch.

What Death Wish gets right is that even when the plot gets predictable, there is that sense of breakdown. Bruce doesn’t perform rage; instead, he lets it simmer. There is no dramatic over-the-top meltdown or speech. Just a man who has been hollowed out and chooses violence because everything else failed him.

And now, watching that calm, watching how still his eyes are, will give you a totally different perspective. It doesn’t feel like a role. It feels like a man who has been through too much. Whether that was acting or something else, we’ll never really know. But it hits.

The movie is sharp and fast. It doesn’t spoon-feed you. Eli Roth directs it like a straight-up throwback. But let’s be honest. People aren’t watching it for the plot mechanics. They are watching for Bruce. Because even when the script leans a bit too hard into vigilante tropes, he holds it. He gives it that weight.

It’s strange how films age when life changes. A few months ago, Death Wish might have just been another revenge movie people scrolled past. But now? It is something else. It is one of the last few times Bruce Willis got to do what only he could do: give you chills without ever raising his voice.

So if it shows up on your Netflix home screen tonight, don’t skip it. Watch it. For the story, sure. But more than that, for the presence. For the man.