Top 10 Vigilante Movies – Sans Superheroes

What is a vigilante? They often exist in settings where justice itself fails; police has become incapable of fighting crime, either because the perpetrator outwits them or because they have an extraterrestrial power that the police simply does not have the power to deal with. This is when the vigilante arises, a man or woman or a bunch of them, who takes justice in his, her or their own hand: to protect the innocent against forces that are too great for the regular justice system to handle.

Note that this is distinctly different from revenge or avenge plots – there, the drive is to hurt someone else because of what they have done to a loved one or friend, or the vigilante her- or himself. A vigilante can do both, though, as long as there is some wish to protect others from the same harm that became them.

Most superheroes I know are vigilantes. In Batman, the police is no longer able to fight the smart villains of Gotham, and needs the help of Mr. Wayne. Spider-man is another, but he’s wittier and less dark than Batman, and has to fight all sorts of odd, super-powered creatures. All the Avengers, all of the Justice League: vigilantes. The same counts for multitudes of other characters taken from comic books: V for Vendetta, The Crow, The Punisher, et cetera.

I could fill this entire list with just comic book figures, but that kind of defeats the purpose. Instead, I’ll leave all superheroes off this list (as well as Robin Hood, who’s just as obvious as the superheroes). Here is the top 10 of movies featuring vigilantes – sans superheroes!

10. Mad Max (1979)

Mad Max is the first entry to this list. It’s a classic!

When cop Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) loses his best friend, his wife and his baby to a motor gang, he realizes he has to go further to stop the reign of the motor gang. He chases the gang down, and kills them all. Mad Max is a typical example of vigilantism in film: Max, a cop himself, realizes normal justice can’t help him and has to resort to illegal, more fatal means to stop the biker gang.

9. Outlaw (2007)

In Outlaw, Sean Bean plays a soldier who just returned home from duty. Once home, he finds out the U.K. has become overrun with crime, and has turned into quite a war zone itself. He forms a group with others that, like him, are of the opinion something needs to be done about the crime wave. Despite their good intentions, their plans go awry, and they become hunted like criminals themselves.

8. Taken (2008)

Taken: Liam Neeson‘s well-known movie that turned him into an action movie actor. In this movie, he plays former CIA agent and proud father Bryan Mills. His daughter, Kim, who lives with his ex-wife, travels to Paris with a friend. Once there, they are soon kidnapped by a human trafficking gang. Kim calls him while it happens, and Bryan speaks with the kidnapper, who took the phone from his daughter. He vows he will hunt them down and kill them. He goes on to do just that – no need to call the police, Bryan feels more confident in his own skills to retrieve her.

7. Walking Tall (1973)

In Walking Tall, former wrestler Buford Pusser (Joe Don Baker) settles down with his wife in his home town in Tennessee. He discovers the town is overrun with crime – he’s beaten up himself, too – and the corrupt Sheriff does nothing about it. Pusser takes a log from his father’s mill, and repays the thugs that beat him up.

The next day, Pusser is arrested and has to go on trial. Instead of going full-on vigilante, he decides to speak out against the corruption and crime. Soon, he becomes Sheriff of the town himself. But again, Pusser is attacked, and this time, his wife is killed and he’s seriously injured himself. In his anger, he kills two of the attackers, again resorting to vigilante means – and he’s hailed as a hero.

6. Gran Torino (2008)

In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood plays a bitter, slowly dying Korean war veteran named Walt Kowalski. He lives in a bad neighborhood which, to his dismay, is being populated with more poor Asians every day. He ignores the new Asian family next-door until the son of the family, Thao, tries to steal Walt’s car (forced to do it by a gang), but Walt scares him away. The gang tries to attack Thao, but Walt prevents it – he confronts them with his rifle. The neighbors slowly come to respect each other more, but meanwhile, the gang continues to badger Thao, eventually hurting him and his family in a drive-by shooting.

No one wants to help Thao and his family and the police is powerless. Walt decides to take matters into his own hands in a very radical way: he fools the gang into killing him, but not before he draws the attention of the whole neighborhood. Afterwards, the police rounds up the entire gang on murder charges. Walt is both a vigilante and an enabler of justice.

5. Harry Brown (2009)

After ex-marine Harry Brown’s (Michael Cain) wife passes away, his best friend tells him he carries a weapon because he’s being harassed by a gang. When his friend is beaten and stabbed to death, the police investigates. However, they find no evidence except his friend’s weapon, so the gang could claim self-defense if they would go to trial. Harry sees justice fails, and he takes matters into his own hands: vigilante-style, he takes out the gang members one by one.

4. Taxi Driver (1976)

Here’s DeNiro‘s most defining role: Travis Bickle in Scorsese‘s Taxi Driver. Bickle is a traumatized Vietnam war veteran, and taxi driver. He drives through New York City all night, lamenting the cesspool and lack of law enforcement he sees on the city streets. He likes a young woman named Betsy, a presidential campaign worker. After he unwittingly offends her, she doesn’t want to see him again and Travis is hurt. He spirals down in his madness and believes he needs to make the world a better place.

His objective becomes Iris, a child prostitute (Jodie Foster) who tries to escape her pimp (Harvey Keitel). He first tries to assassinate the Senator Betsy works for, but when that doesn’t work out, he decides to save Iris and shoots her pimp, as well as other men involved. He’s praised in the media as a hero, as Ill as by Iris’s parents, but Travis doesn’t see himself as a hero and he simply returns to his job as taxi driver.

3. Prisoners (2013)

When Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and Franklin Birch’s (Terence Howard) daughters are kidnapped, they feel law enforcement is failing to save them. They are convinced dim-witted Alex Jones (Paul Dano) is the one who took their daughters. Dover tortures Jones and keeps him locked up in a tiny cell, unable to extract information from him. Birch realizes what Dover is doing is insane and pulls back, but Dover continues his practices, until he finds out Jones wasn’t the perpetrator at all. Instead, he was a victim just like his and Birch’s daughter.

Prisoners shows what happens when the vigilante is wrong, as Dover directs his anger, suspicion and frustration at the wrong person. In Prisoners, vigilantism is not a good thing, unlike most of the other movies we’re discussing today.

2. Death Wish (1974)

When Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) returns from vacation with his wife, his colleague tells him of the rising crime rates in New York City. He discards the idea at first, but after three thugs break into their home and kill his wife and rape their daughter, he becomes enraged. Law enforcement seemingly does nothing about the crime wave and Paul feels forced to do something. He kills the thugs, and goes on to kill many others, especially muggers, who are prowling on every corner.

Later on, the police investigates Paul’s vigilante killings, and Paul becomes a suspect. The public is happy someone is doing something about the crime problem, and the police eventually banishes him from New York. Paul moves to Chicago, where he’s able to continue his vigilante practices, first act being saving a girl from rape and killing her assailants.

1. The Boondock Saints (1999)

The Boondock Saints is the holy grail of vigilantism in film. Two Irish brothers Connor (Sean Patrick Flannery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) MacManus turn themselves in after killing Russian mobsters in self-defense. The police releases them, hailing the two as heroes. They receive a “calling” from God, telling them to hunt down evil to protect the innocent. They are now resolved to eradicate crime in Boston. They quickly kill nine more Russian mobsters. Afraid of the brothers, mafia boss Papa Joe sends assassin Il Duce (Bill Connolly) after them.

Meanwhile, the brothers are being hunted by FBI agent Smecker (Willem Dafoe), who, as time passes, becomes more and more convinced they are doing the right thing. Eventually, Smecker has to make the decision whether he has to prosecute them or help them, and decides on the latter. Il Duce turns out to be the father of the two brothers, and they join forces. After law enforcement and the justice system fail to pass sentence on Papa Joe, the family enters the courtroom and preaches that they intend to eradicate evil, after which they shoot Papa Joe. The media dubs them the “Saints”, but wonders whether they are ultimately good or evil.

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What makes vigilante films so interesting is exactly that question: are vigilantes good or evil? Many of the films portray them as good and don’t doubt their evil. Movies like Prisoners do the opposite and dare to question the actions of the vigilante. While law enforcement and the justice system may often fail to pass sentence to criminals, vigilantes are often shown to kill them when they are not proven to be guilty.

If you’ll take a closer look at this list, you’ll see these vigilante movies are mostly from the 70’s and early 00’s to now. Vigilante films became especially popular in the 70’s because of rising crime rates, and the films echoed the mood of the public that law enforcement wasn’t able to cope with the crime wave. Despite the fact that in reality, crime rates have been falling ever since, vigilante films again became more popular in the 00’s, as again the mood of the public was that criminals should receive harsher punishment. If you add the popularity of superhero films, which I established are all about vigilantism, it’s a very interesting trend to consider.

We’ll discuss vigilantism in film further on Thursday!

Who is your favorite vigilante? What do you think of vigilantism in films? Share your thoughts in the comments.