Good and bad vigilante films

I remember this movie was all the rage, and I saw it in Lubbock when I was attending Texas Tech (1971-75). Nothing was cooler than Billy Jack standing right in front of a big tough sheriff, speaking to him in a calm voice and telling the sheriff that the hero was going to kick him right in the side of his face, and that there was nothing that the sheriff could do to stop it.

Today, that seems so corny, but it was cool in the 1970s.

 

I'm probably gonna rent the original, as I'm curious to compare the 2!

 

I really like this movie. Especially because Carter gets the heck knocked out of him while trying to figure things out...Unlike the BS Steven Seagal type movies where he walks through an army of machine gun fire and only messes up his hair a tiny bit.

Anyway, Carter goes after the mob to get his money back and everyone in the movie is a crook of some sort or another.
Nobody was innocent, or a good guy from the get go.
This makes me wonder if they can be vigilantes or not because, to me anyway, a vigilante needs to be a good guy who has been pushed to the limit.

 

Coalhouse Walker, Jr., played by Howard Rollins, Jr. in Ragtime (1981 movie by Milos Forman), based on a 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow. Doctorow based Coalhouse Walker, Jr. on the title character in Michael Kohlhaas (1810 novella by Heinrich von Kleist).

The movie and both books are masterpieces that you should watch/read right now.

 

Kill Bill.



Haywire.



I don't really want to think about any bad ones...

 

1976's "Breaking Point" has been playing in rotation in the last several late nights on KCWX cable channel. Very gritty and naturally acted "going up against the mob" flick by "Black Christmas"/"A Christmas Story" director, Bob Clark. Stars Bo Svenson McBain character protecting his family from mob hits after he testified as a witness in court against a one of their henchman beating someone to death in the street.

It's very slow paced with a very realistic documentary feel much like The French Connection. The Amazon DVD of this movie is going for over $70 if that's any indication of its popularity. Never saw it in '76 but I can tell it's heavily edited as a TV rerun. There are some very gruesome if not clever ways Bo Svenson deals with the bad guys I've not seen in similar movies then and now.

 

1. The Crow
2. Death Wish
3. Sudden Impact (It may not be considered a vigilante film by some ;however, I consider it to be one)
4. Taxi Driver
5. The Toxic Avenger
6. Hard Candy
7. Taken
8. Falling Down ( I'm not sure if this one counts)
9. The Dark Knight (Let's face it, Batman was a vigilante)
10. License To Kill ( The only James Bond film I like, and the only one I can think of that fits into the genre)

 

But by "Dark Knight", didn't he have cooperation from the police? IIRC, there was some controversy about GCPD support for Batman, but he was essentially an arm of the law.

I mean, they let him into Joker's cell to interrogate him!

 

Batman is basically Gordon's informer/intel operative, even in many of the comics. But boy, that interrogation of the Joker was an embarrassingly bad plot contrivance.

Spider-man is definitely a vigilante though.

 

I liked the South Korean "Vengeance Trilogy" by Park Chan-wook very much. The three movies are "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", "Oldboy" and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". Especially "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" had a very nice Soundtrack.



Also "Lady Snowblood" and the "Female Prisoner" series with Meiko Kaji are worth watching.

 

Is that an example of a good vigilante movie or a bad one?

 

Sorry good one.

 

Bad ones