Vigilante Force

I wonder if this mid 70s drive-in actioner is still on the Bernadette Peters CV? near Sunday IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE? Perhaps MGM saw this and decided she HAD to be in PENNIES FROM HEAVEN....perhaps the Broadway casting office for her recent role in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN designed posters that read: "Bernadette (VIGILANTE FORCE) Peters now on Broadway in Irving Berlin's greatest musical triumph....." it's all as valid as "Stephen Boyd, star of BEN HUR now in his biggest film: JUMBO"............ anyway...

In the mid 70s, wasn't Jan Michael Vincent a major star! There was legions of action fans ready to roll up to the drive in and not molest their girlfriends because they would actually watch all the film! VIGILANTE FORCE is quite a brutal 70s action thriller and has some astonishing stunt fights with the added horror of baseball bats as weapons. I personally was really shocked by these wild fights and found them really upsetting. I think today this film deserves re appraisal for capturing the feel of tough nasty rural town lawlessness and drunken lout rule ...and all in a fantastic 70s time. The look of this film alone would get a big willing audience. Today these films don't exist instead we get disgusting mutilation crap like THE DEVILS REJECTS or WOLF CREEK. In the 70s this action drive in movie was a real action movie, a modern western with trucks and Jack Daniel bars and chicks in teeny weeny denim hotpants. Great fun. Occasionally thumping but not horrible. There is an unforgettable early scene in this film where the boys screech to town in their pickup truck and spin into the main street... it is a jamboree of hooter'n and holler'n and dust and yellin and screamin..all in camera crane sweep.. a whole street of wild Friday afternoon drinkin and crashing! What a stunt vista! unforgettable after 30 years...and a great way to establish what we are in for. DUKES OF HAZZARD meets BUCKTOWN. Hell then breaks loose even more...and poor Miss Peters has to dodge the baseball bats while trying to have a relationship. VIGILANTE FORCE was part of a great series of films - often most with JMV as well - like THE STREETFIGHTER, or BITE THE BULLET or WHITE LINE FEVER., BABY BLUE MARINE, BUSTER AND BILLIE, ALL THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN etc...all well worth seeing again for their purity in presentation...as lean as a Republic serial and as compelling. In the 50s there was a film called THE PHENIX CITY STORY made by Allied Artists as a noir drama. It too has similar themes in an urban setting, and is distinguished by it's tough ideology for the time.

The title sums it up. Vigilante --- yes experienced hired man to clean up a town. Force --- they become a powerful opponent that succumbs to own personal gain. "Anybody having a good time. Gotta be breaking the law. Let's bust them". This is what they were cracking out during the period, as "Vigilante Force" is purely a rough and ready exploitation slice out of the 70s drive-in market.

A small rural Californian town is skyrocketed by crime and violence due the boom of their nearby oil reserve. Ben Arnold turns to his war-hero brother Aaron (who doesn't have a great past with the town's folk) to lead a vigilante force to rid this problem by restoring law and order. At first this is what he does, but soon his back to his old ways as he abuses his power and becomes what he was their to rid. Ben shakes it off at first thinking that the town's folk aren't giving Aaron a fair go, but eventually they come to blows when Ben finally realises what Aaron is really up to.

Typical fodder, but accommodatingly well done and shining through its material is a traditional old-west build-up with an operatic closing between the brothers. Lined up is a bang-up cast of Kris Kristofferson, Jan-Michael Vincent, Bernadette Peters, Victoria Principal, Brad Dexter and David Doyle. Kristofferson ideally fits in the role as Aaron, rugged but with a dark underlining and Vincent is sympathetic as the well-meaning, clean-cut Ben. A doll face Peter is charmingly angelic as Aaron's squeeze and Principal is spirited as Ben's flame. Andrew Stevens shows up, as well as Charles Cyphers and Dick Millar appears in a throwaway cameo.

Director / writer George Armitage's sufficiently tight and hardy handling keeps it moving at a fast clip, where the sharply bright narrative (it's all politics -- involving greed) is always busy (maybe a little too so at times with its tit for tat and scheming with a touch of corruption) and the intense action is nothing but brutal and chaotic. It really does get outrageous towards the dying stages. It's war! Bullets, explosions and leaping stunts galore… where it does go out on a bang. Just can't get enough fire power. The lean photography likes to invoke that guerrilla style when it wants to get up and personal, but also it establishes the sunbaked backdrop accordingly too.

Vigilante Force (1976)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A small town comes under attack from a group of rednecks so a man (Jan-Michael Vincent) decides to talk the Sheriff into letting his Vietnam vet brother (Kris Kristofferson) and his four vet buddies clean things up. The plan starts off good at first but soon the five vets decide to do a few illegal things of their own. VIGILANTE FORCE starts off as a pretty good exploitation flick but it slowly begins to fall apart as the story for some reason switches directions. The beginning of the movie is the type of over-the-top actioneer that you'd expect to see from producer Gene Corman. The start of the movie features a greatest hits package of redneck damage, which includes bar fights, shootings, a stabbing and more violence all of it in drive-in camp fashion. Kristofferson arrives on the scene much like Sam Elliott would in the later cult classic ROAD HOUSE and the movie is still doing good at this part. The actor is very fun in the part and it's entertaining seeing him and his vet buddies walk around putting an end to the trouble. Where the screenplay really lost me was in the second half when they turn these fun guys into coldblooded killers. For the life of me I couldn't understand why they wanted to go this direction but my closest guess is that they wanted the brother versus brother showdown between the two stars. The eventual showdown really doesn't pay off and it also doesn't cool the bad taste left in your mouth from some of the actions that the Kristofferson character does. I won't give any spoilers but some of the murders just make you hate the guy, which completely goes against the feelings they build up early on. Kristofferson is very good in his part as is Vincent as his brother. The supporting cast includes Victoria Principal, Bernadette Peters, Charles Cyphers, Andrew Stevens and John Steadman who is best remembered for Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES. As is, the film works good enough in its first half to make it worth viewing but one wishes they had kept up with the fun times instead of doing something different.

"Vigilante Force" could have been a good movie. Unfortunately, it's not. What a shame. This movie has a good premise, nice locations and a top-notch cast but its script is a letdown. I think they should have given up on the PG rating and went all out and made a R action movie. If they cranked up the violence, language and maybe had thrown in a little nudity, "Vigilante Force" could have been a movie worth seeing a second time. As it is, it's not. Honorable mention: a dreamy Bernadette Peters, a very dreamy Loni Anderson and a wildly dreamy Victoria Principal.

Vigilante Force is a trashy, energetic, empty-headed action picture which keeps you entertained without ever engaging your intellect. Kris Kristofferson gives a great, atypical performance as a seriously nasty bad guy and Jan Michael Vincent offers competent support as his good-guy brother.

The film sees Vincent getting fed up with the violent behaviour of certain rowdy townsfolk in his home town. He hires his brother, Kristofferson, and his Vietnam veteran buddies, to come into the town and clean up the trouble. They get the job done, but then things go sour. They become corrupt and take control of the town themselves, thus becoming just as bad as the thugs they were supposed to get rid of in the first place.

The violence is not gratuitous, but there's enough of it to keep blood-addicted viewers happy. The action is pretty good. The film goes through some slow patches and seems all at sea when the characters stop fighting and shooting and actually sit down to have a conversation. However, when the mayhem is on the screen, the film comes into its own and contains some explosive scenes. Vigilante Force is not great art... the dialogue is clunky and it has no subtext, no deeper meaning than the immediate violence and explosions, but of its kind it is certainly an enjoyable way to pass the time.