SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

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

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Boba_Fett1138 Nothing wrong with a silly exploitation flick every once in while but this movie is just ridicules in a lazy kind of way.It's basically a very messy movie with some lazy writing in it. Not as if any exploitation flicks ever featured a brilliant or original story but at least they often make more sense in their own universe. I had the idea that for this movie the creators were just shooting away. Moments and characters in the movie just often don't make sense at all, which makes this entire movie seem like a quite ridicules one.You could definitely say that this movie had some potential in it. I like the fact that this movie is being like a modern western, in which a bunch of tough guys with a badge cause mayhem and try to take over a town with their terror. Its easily a type of story you could expect in any type of western.It's however a very random movie. All of the actions from the bad guys seem pointless and often very stupid. It's purely put into the movie to make it seem like a violent one but it makes the characters look totally ridicules. The movie and its characters often make a very pointless impression.I also just don't understand some of the characters. People and also loved ones are getting killed in this movie but hardly anyone seems to worry too much about this and life goes on as usual. It doesn't exactly help to make the movie a very believable one.Kris Kristofferson still added some spice but you can't really say that this movie was his greatest moment.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

inspectors71 There's a moment in Vigilante Force (1976) when a young and sleek Victoria Principal takes a bullet in the back as she runs from Kris Kristofferson (evil Vietnam vet and brother to her non-acting boyfriend Jan-Michael Vincent), and the stunt double takes a pretty darned convincing header onto the ground. The fall is so convincing and spontaneous that for a moment--just a fraction of a second--I thought something interesting happened.Then it was back to this working-class hero nonsense, the stuff that filled the lower half of the bill at drive-ins across the country, way back when station wagons roamed the countryside and polyester was king. I remember seeing VF at one of our local passion pits and actually liking its look and feel, that of a brainless quicky-flick that kept me watching but not thinking.Now, 34 years later, I can sit in unhinged-jaw amazement at this lurid goofiness, the sort of production that would make the execs at American International cringe in embarrassment. You'd swear Stephen J. Cannell wrote this thing it's so filled with cartoonish characters, cheesy special effects, and 11th grade drop-out-level thematics.Back in 1976, I had read enough film criticism to understand the rudiments of good film-making. Yet, Vigilante Force is the equivalent of a full tab of Hydrocodone with a small Tequila chaser. The upper frontal part of your brain, the part that tells you when you're watching crap, has been excused for the evening. You feel numb, dumb, and stupidly content. You just don't care.

ptb-8 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.

eddierankey771 When this film came out in 1976, Jan-Michael Vincent was at the height of his popularity, though Kris Kristofferson got top billing, Vincent actually steals this movie from Kristofferson. Showing leading man appeal, Vincent shows if given above-average material he could more than carry a movie, though dated, Vigilante Force was a typical blue-collar, mid-70's movie, as previously stated, town police along with Vincent bring in Kristofferson and his buddies to clean-up the town, but then using their power for their own personal gains, Vincent tries to give his brother the benefit of the doubt, until he realizes he now has to drive them out of town or kill them. This movie was probably the peak of Vincent's big screen career, it's hard to believe this movie didn't elevate Vincent to super-star status, though Vincent had a fine run as an actor in the 70's, mainstream appeal evaded Vincent and though he appeared in Burt Reynold's "Hooper" in 1978, by the end of 1979, Vincent's star had fallen and he was relegated to low-budget B movies, eventually turning to T.V. to revive his flagging career.