Top 10 Vigilante Films of All-Time

Share on Facebook posted 02-02-10 by Max Tedaldi

There is something innately satisfying about the brand of justice exacted by the vigilante. Where cops and other officials must stay within the limits of the judiciary system, vigilantes do what most of us want to do but cannot from the within the confines of our pussy-whipped-by-the-law moral prison. It’s revenge, pure and sweet. The kind that can only truly be enjoyed by someone who has be shat on in the most excruciating way, and is now executing a literal shit-storm of his own. Stripped of any pretense, virtue or pity, the vigilante is the good guy who is fed up with being a doormat, and is ready to kick-ass, take names, and fuck the centerfold model.
With the release of Edge of Darkness this past weekend, we thought it appropriate to celebrate our favorite antiheroes. Because watching someone take the law into their own hands is so much more fun than watching someone get handled by the law, we present to you 30ninjas Top 10 Vigilante Films of All Time:

10. Jodie Foster, Erica Bain in The Brave One

By no means the best film on our countdown, The Brave One is nevertheless an almost perfect example of a vigilante film. While walking her dog in central park with her fiancee, Erica Bain is beaten half to death and raped. She awakes from her coma to confront a flaccid justice system and the gang who accosted her and killed her lover. The Brave One doesn’t really compare to The Accused in terms of brutal Jodie Foster rape movies, but in terms of sweet revenge satisfaction, it has one of the best moments in all of vigilantism. When Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) gives Erica his gun as well as carte-blanche to mess up the thugs who ruined her life, we learn that even hard-ass cops can sympathize with the chick who needs to confront her enemy and fuck his shit up.

Memorable Scene: Erica is (ridiculously) attacked again after her initial encounter. This time she has a gun…

9. Christian Bale, Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight – Joker Interrogation Scene
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Bale’s performance, and the entire film for that matter, was overshadowed by Heath Ledger’s hauntingly maniacal turn as the Joker, in this spectacular sequel. Batman has always been in the upper echelon of vigilante rockstars, but it took the unbridled madness of Ledger’s Joker to show us how pissed everyone’s favorite superpowerless hero can get. Batman is everything that the police wish they could be: powerful, remorseless, and intimidating.

Side Note: The only thing keeping The Dark Knight out of the top 5 is the embarrassing post production done on his voice. Seriously though . . . it’s embarrassing.

Memorable Scene: Batman pummels a hysterical Joker in the interrogation room only to find his intensity met with laughter.

8. Mel Gibson, Max in Mad Max

Mel has fashioned an amazing, albeit controversial, hollywood career playing characters with little hesitation on the trigger and even less respect for the law. Mad Max was the original, and even though the film was made on a shoe-string budget, it still holds up, mostly on account of Gibson’s ferocity. Max is a Main Force Patrol Officer in the post-apocalyptic outback who acts outside the law when his wife and child are killed by a gang. He’s tough, leather-clad, and a force to be reckoned with in all his pre-Lethal Weapon glory.

Memorable Scene: The car chase at the beginning of the film is epic but the best line in the film is when Max handcuffs his rival next to a bomb, gives him a hacksaw and advises:

The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go.

7. Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus, Conner and Murphy MacManus in The Boondock Saints

A cult classic! The Boondock Saints is as much a film about vigilante brothers as it is about stark contrasts. The deeply religious MacManus brothers, must reconcile their faith with their desire for justice. The detective following them must reconcile his faith in the judiciary system with his respect for the brothers’ brand of justice. Both Reedus and Flannery are sarcastic and full of swagger, and Paul Smecker (Willem Defoe) the homophobic homosexual is a perfect foil for the irish duo. I can’t really speak to the sequel that was just released, but the original will make even those who are indifferent clamor for divine intervention.

Memorable Scene: Detective Smecker conducts a symphony of destruction

6. Uma Thurman, Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill: Parts 1 & 2

Revenge is totally a dish best served cold. This movie has too many ridiculously bad-ass scenes to mention, all of which are delivered with Tarantino’s unmistakable flair for cool. Beatrix Kiddo, AKA Black Mamba, is an assassin who is betrayed by her own Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and awakens from her coma several years later on a rampage of blood and revenge. Along the way, Kiddo acquires the most deadly samurai sword in the world, gets buried alive, and uses the five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique to kill the only man she ever loved. Tarantino, who is known for using homage practically to the point of thievery essentially made two separate films, an anime and a western, to tell his legendary tale of vigilantism. Both are long, bloody, and mind-blowing.

Memorable Scenes: Beatrix Kiddo fights the entire crazy 88 gang and rips them all to shreds.

5. Robert DeNiro, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver

A disillusioned, twenty-something, vietnam veteran, slowly descends from depressed introvert into deranged prophet. Like so many of the best vigilante films, Taxi Driver charts the creeping crescendo of it’s main character’s frustration. DeNiro does an amazing job of playing the adult version of that menacingly quiet kid who muttered to himself throughout high school, and Jodie Foster (with her second appearance on the list) is simultaneously precocious and sweet as a pre-pubescent hooker.

Travis Bickle is a particularly terrifying vigilante. He doesn’t have an objective, he is only hell-bent on destroying what he finds disagreeable. What is most deliciously disturbing is that he is hailed a hero at the end of the film.
Side-note: In one of the more romantic scenes witnessed on film, Bickle takes his date to see a Swedish sex education film. Charming!

Memorable Scene: “Are you talkin’ to me?! Are . . . talkin . . . to me?!”

4. Min-sik Choi, Dae-su Oh in Oldboy

The Vengeance Trilogy are three of the most graphic and soul-crushing films ever made. Oldboy is the second film in the series and has a plot so unique that it is only believable as a foreign film. Dae-su Oh is a man who is held captive in a single room for 15 years before he is released. The movie plays out like one excruciating, slow motion train-wreck, you don’t want to keep watching but you can’t rip your eyes off the scene. What makes this film so wonderfully horrifying is that it is not until Dae-su Oh is released that his real torture begins. Oldboy won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004, and remains one of South Korea’s highest grossing films.

Memorable Scene: Dae-su Oh takes on innumerable opponents in a narrow corridor with only a hammer.

3. Charles Bronson, Paul Kersey in Death Wish

The impact of this film may have been cheapened by the diminishing returns offered by its’ sequels, but Death Wish was one of the most influential films of the 1970′s. Bronson plays Paul Kersey, the mild-mannered architect who goes postal when his daughter is raped and his wife is killed. Kersey becomes a one man neighborhood watch on speed as he spends his nights luring in and then killing would be criminals. This film and others like The Magnificent Seven created the bad-ass persona that led to Bronson being nicknamed “the holy monster” and it’s not difficult to see why. Watch Death Wish and you’ll want to go villain hunting yourself!

Memorable Scene: The brutal and controversial rape of Kersey’s daughter.

2. Brandon Lee, Eric Draven in The Crow

With all of the lore surrounding Brandon Lee’s gruesome on-set death, The Crow is often times eclipsed by its lead actor. Apparently, the crew got lazy and bought real shells for the guns instead of blanks and forgot to replace all of them before filming resumed. Lee got a bullet in the gut and died within hours. The on-set nightmares of the shoot only created more of a creepy atmosphere surrounding the film.
Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) is killed by thugs, or so they think, and what rises from his ashes is the crow, an invincible face-painted anti-hero, determined to protect his former fiance and crack the skulls of his murderers. The villains are gruesome, the city is dirty and the Crow is pissed. This neo-noir film has a face-melting soundtrack, a cool dark dystopian mood, and some killer action scenes.

Memorable Scene: Eric Draven becoming the Crow with The Cure’s Burn playing in the background

1. Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry

No one would ever want to mess with Clint Eastwood in any movie, but it’s in Dirty Harry where I really wouldn’t want to fuck with ol’ Blondie. Plot is completely secondary to Eastwood’s rampant coolness, to be honest I think there is an actual good movie hidden beneath all of the Eastwood’s bully and complete disregard for the law, but who knows. And he is the law! Dirty Harry was Jack Bauering before Kiefer Sutherland had even had his first drink, and that is saying something. Watch Dirty Harry and witness the film that gave birth to an entire genre of renegade cops who didn’t give a crap about anything other than killing bad guys.

Side Note: I know what you’re thinking. How is Harry Callahan a vigilante? I mean, he’s a police officer for god sakes. But, a vigilante is really just someone who takes the law into his own hands, and since when did Harry Callahan listen to anyone or anything other than the coaxing whine of this .44 magnum.

Memorable Scene:

I know what you’re thinking — “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But, being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?