Messenger of Death
Encyclopedia
Messenger of Death is a 1988 film starring Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...

 about an attempt by a water company to start a family feud among fundamentalist Mormons to take the family's land for the company.

This was one of the final films in the long career of J. Lee Thompson
J. Lee Thompson
John Lee Thompson , better known as J. Lee Thompson, was an English film director, active in England and Hollywood.- Early years :...

, director of such well-known pictures as The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone can refer to:*The Guns of Navarone - 1957 novel set during World War II by writer Alistair MacLean*The Guns of Navarone - a 1961 film starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn, based on the novel...

and Cape Fear
Cape Fear
Cape Fear is a prominent headland jutting into the Atlantic Ocean from Bald Head Island on the coast of North Carolina in the southeastern United States. It is largely formed of barrier beaches and the silty outwash of the Cape Fear River as it drains the southeast coast of North Carolina through...

.

Plot

Children play outside a rural Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 home. They belong to Orville Beecham (Charles Dierkop
Charles Dierkop
Charles Dierkop is an American film and television character actor.Dierkop was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and attended Aquinas High School in La Crosse...

) and his three wives. Two masked men pull up in a truck and wait for the children to go inside. They proceed to kill the three mothers, who are sister wives
Sister Wives
Sister Wives is an American reality television series broadcast on TLC in 2010. The show documents the life of a polygamist family, which includes patriarch Kody Brown, his four wives and their 17 children. The family began the series living in Lehi, Utah, but has since moved to Las Vegas, Nevada...

, and then the kids. The police arrive before the father, Orville, who returns to find his family massacred.

Arriving on the scene with the chief of police, Barney Doyle (Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents...

) is a Denver newspaper reporter, Garret Smith (Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...

). They were having lunch with a wealthy local businessman, Homer Foxx (Laurence Luckinbill
Laurence Luckinbill
Laurence George Luckinbill is an American actor.-Life and career:Luckinbill was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the son of Agnes and Laurence Benedict Luckinbill. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1956 and The Catholic University of America in 1958.He starred in the 1976 Broadway play...

), to discuss how to get Barney elected mayor when Barney was called about the murders.

Garret does a news story on the massacre. Orville in a local jail, there "for his own protection." Orville is reluctant to talk to Garret but does reveal that his father, Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey
Jeff Corey
Jeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.-Biography:...

), may have been involved. Willis lives in a compound with his followers. He is a fundamentalist Mormon who practices polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...

, as do his son and followers. Willis is the sect's prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

.

Willis tells the reporter that he believes that it was his brother, Zenas Beecham (John Ireland
John Ireland (actor)
John Benjamin Ireland was an actor and film director.-Biography:Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was raised in New York City from the age of 18. He started out in minor stage roles on Broadway...

), who killed Orville's family. Willis and Zenas are alienated from each other by a doctrinal dispute.

Garret, aided by a local editor named Jastra Watson (Trish Van Devere
Trish Van Devere
Trish Van Devere is an American actress.-Early life:Van Devere was born as Patricia Louise Dressel in Tenafly, New Jersey. She was married to the actor George C...

), begins to investigate if Zenas could be behind the killings. Zenas lives in a different Colorado county on a large farm that happens to sit on an artesian
Artesian aquifer
An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. This causes the water level in a well to rise to a point where hydrostatic equilibrium has been reached. This type of well is called an artesian well...

 lake that a large corporation, The Colorado Water Company, has wanted for years. Zenas tells the reporter that Orville probably killed the family of his own son because Willis preaches blood atonement
Blood atonement
In mormonism, blood atonement is a controversial doctrine that teaches that murder is so heinous that the atonement of Jesus does not apply. Thus, in order to atone for these sins, the perpetrators must have their blood shed upon the ground as a sacrificial offering...

. The symbol of both brothers is an avenging angel, which is alleged to be an early Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...

 symbol with a doctrinal counterpart reflecting the idea of blood atonement.

As soon as Orville is released from jail, he returns to his father's compound and plots to attack Zenas in retaliation. Garret tries to warn Zenas, but it's too late. Armed men back each man and they open fire. Garret gets them to agree to a cease fire, but a third-party shoots Zenas (not one of the followers) and the shooting begins again. Zenas and Orville both are killed.

Garret realizes what is happening -- The Colorado Water Company is behind everything. The company has hired an assassin (John Solari) and a junior partner (Gene Davis
Gene Davis
Gene or Eugene Davis may refer to:*Gene Davis , US painter, from Washington, DC*Gene Davis , born Eugene M. Davis, US actor*Gene Davis , American Olympic wrestler...

) to murder Orville's family, counting on the feud between the brothers to eliminate the rest.

Garret is approached by the junior assassin to make a deal, but the senior assassin kills his partner. It turns out the person who hired the assassin is Foxx, the businessman trying to get the police chief elected mayor.

The assassin shows up at a fundraising party for Doyle thrown by Foxx, where he attempts to kill Garret. The reporter gains the upper hand and gets the assassin to reveal that it was Foxx who was responsible for all of the murders. Foxx steals the chief's gun and kills himself.
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