Vigilante (1982)

* * ½


Following Maniac, director William Lustig had crossed disturbing boundaries and shocked audiences with his repulsive psychopath and the human monster’s violent activities. It was violence made even more potent due to Tom Savini’s exceptional make-up which elaborated the explicit nature of the crimes. It was about smaller females caught by a real sick individual who unleashed the savage on them. How could he possibly follow up such a film whose notoriety continues to this day? Interesting enough, Vigilante has lingered in relative obscurity while Lustig’s Relentless with Judd Nelson has acquired a cult following over the years. Vigilante is a *message movie*, announcing to us that the police and other law enforcement aren’t successful in maintaining law and order; that the scum and lowlifes polluting the streets are alive, that it might take vigilantism for any sort of order to be restored.

What makes this film so sickening and distasteful is what happens to Robert Forster’s wife and cute kid, victims at the hands of a foul pack of despicable cretins who look as if they came right out of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, no conscience or moral sense of right and wrong. The Death Wish series made these dregs of society famous for how a civilian decided to take the law into his own hands, roaming the streets, looking for justice by different means, packing heat, and dishing out a brand of punishment these scumbags deserve that the courts or the police seem powerless to provide.

Forster, whose son is shot-gun shot by the leader of the “Headhunters”, tries to seek punishment the right way, through the court system, but when a crooked judge, in lieu with a shady attorney (played by Joe Spinell, as oily and reprehensible as ever), releases the man who killed his son, the film follows the theme set by Death Wish—Forster will seek retribution against all of those who ruined his life. When Forster goes after the judge for his letting the killer go free, he is sentenced to prison.

Look, I realize that all of this is to stir up the emotions so that we root and cheer for the demise and abuse of street punks. I also realize that pacifists will consider movies like Vigilante incorrigible because there seems to be a statement that the only way to rid society of its criminal element is to exterminate them like cockroaches, to maintain the peace and keep the city safe you have to sink to their level, violence begets violence. When Forster gets out of prison, that bitterness and anger that has been fermenting must be released and it’s the Headhunters who become the hunted.



Unlike the Death Wish movies, Vigilante doesn’t show Forster hunting down every single member of the Headhunters, just the one he thought was responsible for murdering his child (although this rat bastard did cut up his wife for slapping the gang member for pouring gasoline all over the service station attendant), the gang leader who did shoot the kid in cold blood with a smile on his face, and the judge who sent him to prison (and was responsible for allowing the rat bastard who cut up Forster’s wife to go free). However, in this movie, we are introduced to a trio of vigilantes led by Fred “The Hammer” Williamson who look for the head honchos responsible for pushing drugs on the streets and street gangs who commit violent crime. For instance, Williamson and his men kidnap a rapist, then later hunt down two drug pushers (one a pimp, another selling narcotics to teenagers) so they can discover the mastermind behind the product moving throughout the New York City streets.

So Forster will join forces with Williamson and his group in order to get even with those who have wronged him. The film follows Forster’s time in prison, how an old-timer, played by the great Woody Strode, saves him from a shower room raping, beating two prisoners to the pulp. Strode, only in the film a few minutes, leaves more of an impression than most do in two hours.

There’s the car chase as Forster pursues the gang leader throughout New York City streets, ending with the two men having scaled a building within a maze of factories. Plenty of blood squibs are put to good use as the Headhunters gang open fire on a pair of police officers inside their patrol car and an infamous Italian businessman is gunned down by Williamson after he finds out that this is the one who has been supplying the drugs poisoning the streets. The film really pours the anguish on Forster as he loses his child, the wife leaves him after he gets out of prison, and he has to resort to murder in order to get penance for all that has happened to him.

I think the film does have enough action and its relation to the Death Wish types of movies should appeal to fans who look for movies featuring ordinary men, middle-aged, who become fed up and wish to settle a score with the worst kind of vermin.