Scott LeBrun As written and directed by George Armitage, "Vigilante Force" is acceptable "turn your brain off", yahoo action fare, albeit with a solid premise. An excellent cast that's full of familiar faces clearly has a fine time with the material. Armitage gets down to business extremely quickly, with an energetic opening credits sequence. From then on it's a series of confrontations that culminate with a whole lot of gunfire and explosions going on.Jan-Michael Vincent plays Ben Arnold, upstanding young citizen in the small town of Elk Hills. Unfortunately the scores of men who came to work on nearby oil fields have begun to raise bloody hell in the town. In desperation, the towns' bigwigs agree to bring in Bens' brother Aaron (Kris Kristofferson), a Vietnam vet, and Aarons' wartime comrades, to try to restore law and order. Soon, however, the "solution" proves to be another problem, as Aaron lets a position of power go to his head and indulges in all manner of crooked ventures.Vincent is good, but Kristofferson out-acts him with style, bringing charisma and humour to his juicy role. The sweet and sexy Victoria Principal plays Vincents' gal pal, and the cute as a button Bernadette Peters is endearing as flaky singer "Little Dee", whose shtick involves acting as if she knows everybody. The Who's Who cast of supporting players is most impressive: Brad Dexter as the mayor, Judson Pratt as the police chief, and David Doyle as a banker, as well as Antony Carbone, Andrew Stevens, Paul Gleason, John Steadman, Charles Cyphers, and Carmen Argenziano. Bombshell actress Loni Anderson and cult icon Dick Miller have uncredited cameos.The folksy music by Gerald Fried adds to the substantial fun factor of this movie. Armitage really gives his audience their money's worth, and knows how to end things in a big way.Seven out of 10.

Michael_Elliott Vigilante Force (1976) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A small town comes under attack from a group of rednecks so a man (Jan-Michael Vincent) decides to talk the Sheriff into letting his Vietnam vet brother (Kris Kristofferson) and his four vet buddies clean things up. The plan starts off good at first but soon the five vets decide to do a few illegal things of their own. VIGILANTE FORCE starts off as a pretty good exploitation flick but it slowly begins to fall apart as the story for some reason switches directions. The beginning of the movie is the type of over-the-top actioneer that you'd expect to see from producer Gene Corman. The start of the movie features a greatest hits package of redneck damage, which includes bar fights, shootings, a stabbing and more violence all of it in drive-in camp fashion. Kristofferson arrives on the scene much like Sam Elliott would in the later cult classic ROAD HOUSE and the movie is still doing good at this part. The actor is very fun in the part and it's entertaining seeing him and his vet buddies walk around putting an end to the trouble. Where the screenplay really lost me was in the second half when they turn these fun guys into coldblooded killers. For the life of me I couldn't understand why they wanted to go this direction but my closest guess is that they wanted the brother versus brother showdown between the two stars. The eventual showdown really doesn't pay off and it also doesn't cool the bad taste left in your mouth from some of the actions that the Kristofferson character does. I won't give any spoilers but some of the murders just make you hate the guy, which completely goes against the feelings they build up early on. Kristofferson is very good in his part as is Vincent as his brother. The supporting cast includes Victoria Principal, Bernadette Peters, Charles Cyphers, Andrew Stevens and John Steadman who is best remembered for Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES. As is, the film works good enough in its first half to make it worth viewing but one wishes they had kept up with the fun times instead of doing something different.

robespierre9 This movie could only originate in the 1970's!! It's a bizarre action movie set in a small California workers town. Some sort of mill or plant is closing down, so suddenly, rampant bad behavior is occurring in the streets! The townsfolk's are fed up! So Ben Arnold (Jan Michael Vincent), goes to another town to recruit his brother, Aaron, played by Kris Kristofferson. Aaron is a Vietnam Vet who looks and acts a little…off balance. He hangs out with a bunch of other surly Vietnam vet's. They come into town to clean it up (they become deputized), but underneath their good deeds, they are actually running gambling houses, asking for protection money, etc.!!! It takes a while for people to catch on, and in a biblical Cain and Abel showdown, Vincent has to take on his older brother. There's an interesting blue-collar sleaze atmosphere to this movie, which makes it interesting (note the cock-fighting scene!). Vincent is almost too angelic in this role – he thinks so highly of his brother, he cannot conceive of him committing the evil deeds he's accused of. He finally comes to his senses – his girlfriend, Victoria Principal, is brutally shot in the back & he himself is beaten up in his home. Kris Kristofferson is creepily effective as Aaron. He coolly denies any wrong-doing, and even gently coos and talks to Vincent's young daughter (she refers to him as 'Uncle Aaron') even while he's threatening her father's life, all the while smiling! Vincent and Kristofferson have good contrasting chemistry with each other. Bernadette Peters makes an interesting appearance as a 'saloon' girl who attracts Aaron's attention. This is a good 70's action movie, if you can find it!! It is NOT available on DVD yet

Jonathon Dabell Vigilante Force is a trashy, energetic, empty-headed action picture which keeps you entertained without ever engaging your intellect. Kris Kristofferson gives a great, atypical performance as a seriously nasty bad guy and Jan Michael Vincent offers competent support as his good-guy brother.The film sees Vincent getting fed up with the violent behaviour of certain rowdy townsfolk in his home town. He hires his brother, Kristofferson, and his Vietnam veteran buddies, to come into the town and clean up the trouble. They get the job done, but then things go sour. They become corrupt and take control of the town themselves, thus becoming just as bad as the thugs they were supposed to get rid of in the first place.The violence is not gratuitous, but there's enough of it to keep blood-addicted viewers happy. The action is pretty good. The film goes through some slow patches and seems all at sea when the characters stop fighting and shooting and actually sit down to have a conversation. However, when the mayhem is on the screen, the film comes into its own and contains some explosive scenes. Vigilante Force is not great art... the dialogue is clunky and it has no subtext, no deeper meaning than the immediate violence and explosions, but of its kind it is certainly an enjoyable way to pass the time.