A war veteran turns one-man vigilante when his friend is attacked and paralyzed by furious band formed by some ominous punks

ma-cortes

Successful crime thriller of the 80s that went on the ¨Vigilante genre¨ which Bronson had created as Architect Paul Kersey turned avenger . Again an ordinary man become vigilante and taking the law into his own hands as judge , jury and executioner. This first entry with excessive violence concerns about John Eastland (Robert Ginty), a Vietnam vet and New York worker and become into relentless revenger . John turns the one-man vigilante when his friend (Steve James) is attacked by furious band formed by some heinous villains . His friend lives in N.Y. along with his wife and daughter and he is made a cripple and reduced to living vegetable. Eastland then stalks the slums of N.Y. and takes the law into his own hands , searching vengeance on crooks , hoodlums, sadistic muggers and pimps making the neighborhood safer and bumping off delinquents and street scum. Meanwhile a stubborn police inspector (Christopher George) is investigating the grisly events .

This first outing contains suspense , noisy action-packed, intrigue, thrills galore and lots of violence and gore , including obnoxious executions as nasty beheading -made by Stan Winston- and others. This disgusting story looks increasingly passionless and mechanical and violence seems to be considered excessive . Robert Ginty with his usual stoic acting displays efficiently his weapon , Magnum 44 , such as ¨Harry the Dirty¨ and killing mercilessly nasties . It's certainly thrilling , though the morality may be questionable , even in this time, as the spectators were clearly on the Ginty-Eastland side . Furthermore, appears a nice main and secondary cast , as Susanna York as a doctor , Christopher George as obstinate cop ,and Dennis Boutsikaris as heinous hoodlum in his film debut. It packs a screeching musical score composed, orchestrated by Joe Renzetti , including a wonderful and emotive final song that is the best item of the film . There's an unrated director's cut that runs some minutes more . This exciting motion picture is middlingly directed by James Glickenhaus . He's an expert on violent action movies as proved in ¨The protector¨, ¨Shakedown¨ and ¨The soldier¨ . Followed by another extremely violent and low-budgeted sequel to this successful 1980 movie , realized in 1984 by the same producer Mark Buntzman with Mario Van Peebles in his movie debut , Debora Geffner, Frankie Faison and of course Robert Ginty , replacing his Magnum by means of using a blowtorch against street scum.

score 5/10

ma-cortes 15 October 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2503196/