Man murdered in the beginning of the movie gets to avenge it at the end. The action is linear, no flashbacks or tricks.
RoboCop
The Crow
Ghost
I think the Crow fits the best of x-ray’s answers.
That one crossed my mind, but unless I’m mistaken:
- The protagonist doesn’t die in the beginning of the movie.
- The majority of the movie is a flashback.
He is poisoned at the beginning of the film and has a limited time to get his killer. He is doing, in liner time.
As you said, he’s poisoned (but not murdered at the beginning of the movie) and cites I found online backup my recollection that the story is told as a flashback. Also, I don’t think the murder to be is “avenged.”
I take that last sentence back. I just watched the end again.
High Plains Drifter
^ Good one.
Another one along the lines of D.O.A. (the protagonist is poisoned at the beginning and doesn’t necessarily die at the end [we find out in the sequel that he didn’t]) is Crank.
I should have qualified it further by saying nothing magical or supernatural, although then you would have gotten it anyway…
there is nothing magical or supernatural in RoboCop. it’s science
^ I think Stoid is saying that RoboCop is the movie she was looking for and not the other two that I listed in my first post.
Well there are flashbacks but The Crying Game. The Forrest Whitacre character gets “revenge” on the Stephen Rea character.
There are flashbacks in Robocop. He flashes back to his life before he was killed when he walks through his house.
Pedantically true, but I think the OP meant no flashbacks that are relevant to the linear nature of the progression from death to revenge: “The action is linear”. Remembering the wife doesn’t impact on that.
That’s also the plot of Crank.
You would be amazed to know how happy it makes me when my words, which are carefully chosen (in this case because I recalled the non-pertinent flashbacks) are read and understood precisely as I intended them to be. Seriously. It’s so pleasant…
Ditto my previous. 
Is Robocop the movie you are talking about? Did you know the movie and this was a quiz for us? Or was this “I kind of remember a movie where this happened” sort of thread. That’s what I thought it was and with that type of thread the details are usually fuzzy.
Apparently it is, based on Stoid’s last post.
I was wondering the same thing. It would be odd to forget that the movie you were trying to remember was about a cyborg (and not mention it when asking for help if you did remember), but it would also be odd to start a thread that was a quiz for others and not mention that either as it reads like most “help me identify this film” threads.