Blue Underground, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a newly-minted 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition of director Bill Lustig’s 1982 New York City crime thriller, Vigilante, locked in for delivery on Dec. 15.
Filmed on Long Island in October of 1981, Vigilante had a Cannes Film Festival premiere in of May of 1982, which wasn’t really for arthouse purposes, but to shop the film for distribution. Lustig’s Magnum Motion Pictures has produced the film and it was eventually acquired for distribution by Artists Releasing Corporation, which ended up stiffing Lustig on his share of the film’s box office receipts (film opened theatrical in March of 1983).
You basically have a low budget action film, a pitiful, under-financed theatrical launch and rights issues. That means Vigilante goes into the great abyss, right? No, Lustig delivered a film that still works — still works on many levels — and has become something of a cult film … from a cult director (Maniac, Maniac Cop, Uncle Sam).
What a wicked twist of a plot. Your first thought is another spin on the Charles Bronson Death Wish film, but Vigilante has moved beyond the lone hunter seeking revenge and is more of a statement on how the system, especially in New York City, had fallen apart. That continues to register with audiences, even to this day.
We get a tease in the opening “hook,” when a vicious thug by the name of Rubin (Vincent Russo), rapes and murders a young woman and gets away with it. Sure, there was a witness, an old lady, but she knows that cops won’t do anything, the system is broken.
Instead, she reaches out to locals, Ramon (Joseph Carberry — Missing in Action, Short Eyes), Burke (Richard Bright — best remembered as Al Neri in The Godfather movies, plus such films as Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Hair, On the Yard, etc.) and the no-nonsense Nick (Fred Williamson) to deal with it. And they do!!
In one of those small work things, the star of the film, Robert Forster’s character, Eddie, is friends with the neighborhood vigilantes, but he is unaware of what they do. Just about the time he is hanging out with them for lunch, his wife Vickie (Rutanya Alda — Mommie Dearest, The Deer Hunter, Amityville II: The Possession) and young son, Scott (Dante Joseph), are in the middle of a home invasion assault by Rico (Willie Colón) and members of his Headhunters gang.
In short order, little Scott is blown to pieces with from a shotgun blast, Vickie is beaten to within an inch of her life and Rico is arrested, a deal is struck and he is turned loose … and Eddie goes ballistic in court and ends up in jail (where, naturally he gets beaten). Justice?
Nick, Burke and Ramon have a brand-new member, Eddie, and they waste no time in taking out the trash!!
Bonus goodies include not one, but three separate commentary options. The first features Lustig and co-producer Andrew Garroni, the second teams Lustig with Forster, Williamson and fellow Frank Pesce … and the third features film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson.
There are also two featurettes — “Blue Collar Death Wish” and “Urban Western.”
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