Vigilante

Title: Vigilante
Director: William Lustig
Released: 1982
Starring: Robert Forester, Fred Williamson, Richard Bright, Rutanya Alda, Don Blakely, Joseph Carberry, Wille Colan, Joe Spinell

Plot: Eddie (Forster) a factory worker in New York finds himself torn between his belief in Law and Order and seeking vigilante justice when his wife and son are attacked by a street gang.

Review: Following on from his controversial slasher Maniac here director William Lustig inspired by a news article about a group of blue collar workers in New Jersey organising a vigilante group to fight crime in their neighbourhood. This idea is truly captured in the films opening as Fred Williamson’s Vigilante leader Nick gives a rousing speech to a neighbourhood meeting about how the police and courts are failing them and how it now falls to them to fight back against the street gangs taking over their neighbourhoods, ending with a shot of these same everyday folks at a shooting range.

In opposition to Nick’s vigilante group is Robert Forster’s Eddie, the pair best friends and workers at the local factory and while Nick is busy preparing to clean house with his secret vigilante group, Eddie meanwhile still has a belief in law and order and that the courts and that the police will maintain the order. That of course is until his wife and son are attacked by a local gang which soon has him questioning his own beliefs especially when one of the gang member is got off the hook by his sleazy lawyer played here by Maniac’s Joe Spinell and the corrupt judge.

Lustig is of course no stranger to the sleazy side of New York and even after this film it would continue to be his location of choice, especially for the three Maniac Cop movies he’s probably best known with this film being something of a hidden gem and certainly a lot deeper than it’s Death Wish framework might suggest. Credit has of course got to be given to Forester who here is not just another citizen taken up arms against the local scumbags, but instead a man heavily conflicted over crossing the line, something that his buddy Nick has little qualms about as him and his fellow vigilantes set out to hunt down the gang responsible for the attack on Eddie’s family and dishing out their own brand of street justice. Lustig equally plays into the after effects of the attack rather than using it just as a way to introduce the vigilante element and it only serves to further ground the film which honestly was something I wasn’t expecting to find going into this film.

A real hidden gem of a movie and one that is worth hunting down, especially as the onscreen pairing of Forester and Willamson really sell both sides of the call for vigilante justice. Throw in some rough and ready action and some French Connection style car chases and it only adds to the fun.