Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

imbluzclooby Some movies earn their reputation on 'Shock-Value' alone. After reading other reviews it seems there is a fairly broad range of tastes and cultural sophistication among the reviewers that range from sadistically deranged to seemingly emotionally balanced.I vaguely remember this movie when it was released. I was 12 and I don't recall anyone talking about it. So I suppose it was box-office flop. Outside of its shocking violence the movie is about as uninspiring, cheesy, clumsy and repugnant as one could find. Honestly, the production values are as cut-rate as one would find in an average porn film. The Exterminator shamelessly rips off the Vigilante tale, undoubtedly, from Death Wish, a better movie. But it doesn't even have the quality acting, believable script or production values of Death Wish. It is simply a moronic tale of an urban nobody who avenges the death of his friend. Then inexplicably, without any noticeable character development, emotional range or dramatic arc, the lead actor, Robert Ginty, goes on a maniacal rampage to become a homicidal maniac who exceeds the carnage of the thugs he chooses to target. There are several torture scenes that are not only implausible in nature and nuance, but seem to just grade against the monotone plot. There are a series of slow plot developments that occur only through coincidence that are punctuated by brutal torture and offings. A couple of the acts committed by the protagonist are so hideous that they are actually more heinous than any deed committed by the thugs or creeps depicted in the film. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, because the movie is not sophisticated enough to distinguish due justice or a senseless rampage. The only hope for this movie's theme is if we engage in the idea that violence begets violence and its bloody consequences. But the film doesn't even achieve that level of social consciousness. And therefore is nothing more than gratuitous and cinematic crud. It just plays out like a messy series of sketches that illustrate some Right-wing fantasy of ridding criminals. I guess this film was hoping to bank on the American public's cry for justice during a time when America was plagued with urban blight during the Carter administration and its ineffective and lenient judicial system.Typically, the movie is also a timepiece of its own era (Late 70's and early 80's) with laughably bad hairstyles. The acting is pretty bad in parts. Christopher George, as the lead detective, is too incompetent and lethargic as a worthy nemesis to the vigilante villain. Robert Ginty is strangely bland and he's an odd choice for an anti-hero. He just seems very unfit and unconvincing in this kind of role. The thugs, perpetrators, pedophiles and mobsters in the milieu are about as menacing as an elementary school faculty. Characters are so hopelessly unbelievable in acting and presence that I'm certain they were paid very low salaries. This production also has a considerable amount of one-time actors where this was their only big-screen gig. After watching this abominable piece of celluloid it comes to no surprise. The problems with this movie are so abundant that to bother mentioning all of them would take too much space. The opening and closing ballad is also execrable.

glenn-aylett This is a vigilante film about New York, part of a trend that was started by Death Wish in 1974. Basically the plot concerns a warehouse worker in New York who served in Vietnam named John Eastland whose best friend and fellow Vietnam veteran is paralysed by a gang of thugs when he disturbs them breaking into a warehouse. Swearing revenge, Eastland wipes out the gang members that paralysed his friend, then decides to take on a gangster who is extorting money from the warehouse( he is killed horrifically by being dropped into a meat mincer) and a child abuse gang that involves a senator and then wiping out a group of violent muggers who are part of the same gang that paralysed Eastland's best friend. While a bit cheaply made and unsettling in places, The Exterminator shows what a dirty, dangerous place New York was 35 years ago. Unlike now, where Times Square is a lively and safe pedestrianised square, in 1980 it was full of pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers and one scene shows Eastland in a squalid hotel used by prostitutes asking a prostitute who has been tortured by the child abuse gang for more information. Also Eastland's neighbourhood is full of semi derelict and dangerous tenement blocks that are often rat infested, the rats coming in useful when Eastland ties two members of the Ghetto Ghouls gang up and lets the rats attack them.Unlike now, and something the film alludes to constantly, NYC is adirty and crime ridden city and run by a corrupt and aloof city government which believes The Exterminator, as Eastland now styles himself, is a plot by their political opponents to bring them down. In the final part of a film, the mayor and the CIA decide to try and wipe out The Exterminator, but he manages to escape being shot and swims away to freedom from an abandoned ship where he has arranged a rendezvous with the detective that is investigating him.I quite like The Exterminator, even if many critics savaged it for being too violent, and think it was very much of its time when New York was a frightening place to live and the police and city government were ineffective and corrupt.

Bezenby A vigilante is walking the streets of New York, dispatching villains using various methods. Can cop Christopher George find the exterminator? Well, only if he can stop romancing that doctor for five minutes, which he doesn't. This gritty, violent slice of eighties goodness is well worth tracking down. I remember the posters from back when I was a kid. Where else can you see a mobster getting fed into an industrial mincer, a nonce getting covered in petrol and torched, and a truly jaw dropping decapitation?It helps greatly that Mr movie gold, Christopher George (from Grizzly, City of the Living Dead, Pieces and Enter the Ninja) and Robert Ginty (from Whitefire and Codename: Vengeance) are both excellent here, and both sadly no longer with us either. Sigh.

Scott LeBrun Writer / director James Glickenhaus's "The Exterminator" is fine exploitation entertainment, albeit on a purely visceral level. It doesn't exactly have the most coherent story, but the "Death Wish" style premise is easy enough to understand. Where it truly succeeds is in creating some memorably vicious and amazingly trashy moments. As a snapshot of the very seedy side of NYC at the time, it's aces. Some viewers will appreciate the combination of action, stunts, and sleaze; there's always another nasty surprise around the corner.Robert Ginty has the title role (otherwise known as John Eastland), a Vietnam veteran whose life is saved more than once by good friend Michael Jefferson (the charismatic Steve James, in a part you wish was bigger). Michael, unfortunately, is targeted by degenerate street punks back in NYC; he is mugged and paralyzed. John, knowing he owes his friend, tracks the punks down and gives them what they deserve. But he doesn't stop there. Incensed at the various kinds of crime in The City, he becomes a flamethrower wielding vigilante, soon pursued by amiable detective James Dalton (Christopher George).The entertainment value here, of course, lies in that vicarious pleasure we so often experience watching somebody, whether fictional or real, fight back against the criminal scum that try to make our lives miserable. Whether we're dealing with the punks, a loathsome "chicken pimp" (a creep who specializes in procuring boys for perverts, played by Tony Di Benedetto), or big shot mobsters such as Gino Pontivini (Dick Boccelli), the bad guys are so bad you wait eagerly to see them punished. The wildest scene has a guy fed into a meat grinder, although people also get set on fire and shot in the crotch with poisoned bullets. These moments are what make this such a trashy fun experience, although it does waste some time giving the detective character a love interest, a doctor played by Samantha Eggar. One good thing is that the movie literally begins with a bang, giving us a nightmarish Vietnam sequence that features what is one of the best cinematic decapitations of all time, thanks to Tom Burman and Stan Winston.George as always has an engaging presence, and Eggar is endearing as his new lady friend. Ginty does what he has to do well enough; buffs will note the presence of a number of character faces - David Lipman, Dennis Boutsikaris, George Cheung, Ned Eisenberg, Irwin Keyes, Lou David, Tom Everett - among the cast. Apparently Samuel L. Jackson was also an extra somewhere in here!Amazing aerial shots of NYC, excellent music by Joe Renzetti, and some poignant songs over the opening and ending credits also help.If you love other urban B pictures from this period (William Lustigs' "Vigilante" is another good one), then this one is pretty much mandatory viewing.Seven out of 10.