If you can get past a very disturbing first 10 minutes of this film which involves the massacre of a group of women and children out in the middle of the country somewhere in Colorado, you will find yourself involved in a somewhat compelling action thriller with a hint of mystery that is fairly enjoyable. It's a movie that claims to have an Insight on Mormon revenge, the church's cut down on multiple marriages and alleged protest against it. The film pits two brothers (John Ireland and Jeff Corey) against each other as enemies, and Bronson, as a reporter, is brought to the scene of the crime where he notices a drawing on the wall that seems to be the hints to a clue as to why these murders took place.

The film gets very complex, often too much so, but it's filled with a lot of intrigue along the way and a great supporting cast and weird gothic musical score. You've got great veteran character actors Corey and Ireland getting some good stuff to do. And in place of Bronson's real life wife and often co-star Jill Ireland (who was suffering from cancer at the time) is replaced by Mrs. George C Scott, Trish Van Devere. 70's ingenue Marilyn Hassett is also featured, and Laurence Luckinbill also has a very good role. I wasn't convinced with how things turned out oh, and sound the conclusion very abrupt in a way that left many questions unanswered. Still, Bronson is always a lot of fun to watch in action, even as he got older.

The film opens with a series of gruesome murders, made all the worse by the fact that a lot of them were children. As a writer for the Denver Tribune, Garrett Smith (Charles Bronson) is intrigued enough to investigate, and discovers a blood feud between opposing brothers of a Mormon family. The pastor of one faction is so self righteous that he has no trouble proclaiming that it's okay 'to murder people in order to save them'. He probably picked up that argument when it was made by an army general during the Vietnam War, but I digress. What's really odd in the early part of the story is how Pastor Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey) fakes a heart attack to stage his own funeral. But why??!! It didn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things, and his presence wasn't required for the resolution of the story. All of which made it seem like the whole thing was a bit muddled, because the Mormon feud was kept burning by an invisible hand who wanted to procure the land owned by Zenas Beecham (John Ireland),which sat atop a huge water aquifer, coveted by the Colorado Water Company. Bronson's presence in the story isn't as climactic as those in the 'Death Wish' franchise, and even though his investigation brings the story to a close, it's with the help of a mover and shaker (Laurence Luckinbill) on the Denver business scene who was pulling the strings on the water takeover. His involvement ended however, when he decided to put an end to it all with a self administered bullet to the head. This one's probably best left for Bronson fans only, and even then, you wouldn't be missing a whole lot if you let it pass.

Messenger of Death opens with a pair of assassins murdering nine members of a Mormon family, all of them wives and children of Charles Dierkop. This piques the interest of Charles Bronson who is an investigative reporter for the Denver Tribune. He goes out there to the hinterlands of western Colorado to investigate and turns up some interesting information. A Mormon blood feud might not be the reason for the massacre, the motive shall we say might be more commercial.

Bronson's a reporter who carries a licensed weapon. Remember this is Colorado folks, a very red state where they take the right to bear arms seriously. He needs it going out where he's going.

This is some real rural area where some Mormons who never accepted the change regarding polygamy. The law of the land is rather tenuously enforced here, these folks make their own laws. John Ireland and Jeff Corey pay a pair of feuding Mormon brothers, these two have some real hate for each other, they make some of those Appalachin mountain people feuds like the Oxford debating society.

Bronson has two leading ladies with naught a hint of romance with either, in Denver Marilyn Hassett in the boonies, fellow newspaperperson Trish Van Devere. He and Van Devere nearly get themselves killed by some tractor trailers in a nicely staged car chase.

Look for good performances from Daniel Benzali as the ambitious Denver Police Chief and Laurence Luckinbill as the big mover and shaker in Denver politics.

It's a good film with a peek into a world few of the rest of us ever get to see.