A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Showing posts with label Vigilante. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vigilante. Show all posts

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Vigilante (William Lustig, 1982)

Fred Williamson in Vigilante

Cast: Robert Forster, Fred Williamson, Richard Bright, Rutanya Alda, Don Blakely, Joseph Carberry, Willie Colón, Joe Spinell, Carol Lynley, Woody Strode, Vincent Beck. Screenplay: Richard Vetere. Cinematography: James Lemmo. Production design: Mischa Petrow. Film editing: Larry Marinelli. Music: Jay Chattaway. 

William Lustig's Vigilante is a raw, hyper, low-budget version of Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974), and there are those who think it's the more effective movie because its rawness and cheapness make it feel more immediate. Robert Forster plays Eddie Marino, whose son is murdered by a marauding gang that also sends his wife (Rutanya Alda) to the hospital. When a judge on the take lets the bad guys go free, and Eddie's protest gets him jailed for contempt of court, he joins a group led by Nick (Fred Williamson) that's determined to take the law in their own hands. The movie turns out to be a solid endorsement of vigilantism, unconscionable and full of ethnic stereotypes, but undeniably watchable.

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