Vigilante

Vigilante, later released on video as Street Gang, is a 1982 American vigilante film directed by William Lustig and starring Robert Forster and Fred Williamson. Lustig came upon the idea for the film through a news article about "a group of blue collar workers in southern New Jersey who had organized to fight crime in their neighborhood". Plot Eddie Marino is a factory worker in New York City and has a wife named Vickie and an eight-year-old son named Scott. Eddie's friend and co-worker Nick and two other co-workers Burke and Ramon have formed a secret vigilante group because Nick and the group are fed up with the crime in their neighborhoods. Nick and his group are also tired of the police, because the police always fail to protect people. Nick's "group" has support of various residents of the neighborhood who indirectly help them. One evening, Eddie returns home from work only to discover that Vickie has been stabbed and Scott has been shot dead in a home invasion which was in retaliation for Vickie aiding a gas station attendant who was being assaulted earlier. Frederico "Rico" Melendez, who is the punk leader of a Puerto Rican street gang, is arrested for the crime. ADA Mary Fletcher seeks a lengthy prison sentence since the country does not have the death penalty. Nick tries to convince Eddie to join the vigilante group, but Eddie turns Nick down, preferring to let the courts handle Rico. Nick's lack of faith in the system is proven correct when Rico is set free after his right-hand man Prago bribes both Judge Sinclair and Rico's attorney Eisenburg. Enraged, Eddie attacks the judge and is sentenced to 30 days in prison. With Eddie in prison, the vigilante group tracks down the source of the drugs in their neighborhood. After roughing up a small-time drug dealer and torturing his supplier, they are led to a high-ranking member of the Mayor's office. Meanwhile, Eddie befriends an inmate named Rake who saves him from being assaulted in the showers. After getting released from prison, Eddie joins the vigilante group in order to track down and kill Rico, Prago and Judge Sinclair. Eddie, Nick, Burke and Ramon confront Rico in his seedy apartment, where Rico denies killing Eddie's son and insists it was Prago. An unmoved Eddie shoots him dead, but narrowly escapes death when Rico's girlfriend attempts to shoot him; she wounds Burke instead and Nick kills her in self-defense.