Vigilantes: Private Justice in Popular Cinema

by Kevin Grant

For many people, the cinematic vigilante has been shaped by Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish and its sequels. But screen vigilantes have taken many guises, from Old West lynch mobs and rogue police officers to rape-avengers and military-trained equalizers. This book recounts the varied representations of such characters in films like The Birth of a Nation, which celebrated the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, and Taxi Driver, Falling Down and You Were Never Really Here, in which the vigilante impulse was symptomatic of mental instability. Also considered is the extent to which fictional vigilantism functions as social commentary and to what degree it is simply stoking popular fears.

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2020

Reviews

[Chaco72 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vigilantes, Private Justice in Popular Cinema is one of those film history studies that is both meticulously researched and entertaining to read. Centring on the boom of Vigilante films in the 1970s exemplified by films such as Death Wish, Walking Tall and Taxi Driver, author Kevin Grant tells us how cinema – particularly American cinema – got to that point with cinematic stories of western lynch mobs, shadowy underworld cults, the glorification of White supremacists in Birth of a Nation, then takes us beyond the 1970s to see how the movie vigilante has changed in recent years.
Grant focuses on different genres and time periods dividing the book clearly and concisely along different themes. Chapters look at westerns, 30s social problem films, the 70s “golden age”, vigilante cops, female vigilantes and more recent characters such as William Foster in Falling Down and Joe in You Were Never Really There.
Reasons for trends in the sub-genre are supported by crime statistics and true-life comparisons that the author has drawn from to make sense of a type of cinema too often dismissed as exploitative by more supercilious film critics.
Vigilantes is a great addition to the library of popular film studies and is as well crafted as you would expect from the man who wrote Any Gun Can Play, the definitive study of spaghetti westerns, and Renegade Westerns, the ultimate guide to revisionist westerns.