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Vigilante (2008)
Cool Awesome Movies review of VIGILANTE
Original article review at: http://coolawesomemovies.blogspot.com/2010/03/vigilante.html
This was the only unplanned entry in our month of Man Fest 2010, which I decided to watch on a whim. Why? Let's see
Manly title? Vigilante. Check. Manly poster? Check. Manly tagline? Revenge is his profession. Check. Manly plot? Check.
and that's pretty much all I needed to know.
It must be said this is a very low budget Australian film (written and directed by Aash Aaron). Taking all into consideration, it wasn't bad at all. Unfortunately, it also wasn't as badass as I wanted it to be. "Vigilante" is about a man named Luke (Robert Diaz) whose fiancée has been brutally raped and murdered by Alex (Kazuya Wright) , the spoiled son of the most influential (and corrupt) family in the city. After the law, like always, does nothing to apprehend the perps, Luke starts training with master Leigh (Glenn McLaren) who teaches him all sorts of ass kicking techniques to become the Vigilante
who's essentially a poor man's Punisher. The thing gets complicated when Luke becomes romantically involved with the hot redhead detective Pauline (Lexie Symon) who's been assigned to crack the Vigilante case.
The budgetary constraints obviously manifested themselves on screen. "Vigilante" does look pretty cheap, but I didn't view it as a problem at all when writing this review. What I hold against it is the lack of true badassery in terms of fight scenes. There weren't any shootouts, with the Vigilante not being a weapons expert like Frank Castle. The battle scenes left much to be desired and Robert Diaz was never truly convincing in this particular role as an enraged avenger. I would've very much preferred if him and Kazuya Wright (now, how cool of a name is this? Goddamn!) had switched places. Kazuya, one the other hand, was totally awesome.
The whole film as a concept was great, especially to me because I'm a great Punisher fan (and there's even a nod to him in "Vigilante"), but the execution is just kind of
I don't know, not on the level. On a positive note, "Vigilante" features some great heavy metal tunes all throughout. And it also has a simple, but good philosophical debate (of sorts) on the topic of vigilantism being right or wrong, held between Luke and Pauline... in which, by the way, Pauline gets owned.
Now, I can't really recommend "Vigilante". It didn't hold up to my expectations, at least not completely. But on the other hand, I love independent cinema and this was a very commendable effort.
Rating: 6/10