Vigilante is a 1983 film directed by William Lustig. It stars Robert Forster and Fred Williamson.
Eddie Marino is a factory worker in New York City. He has a wife named Vickie and a eight-year-old son named Scott. Eddie's friend and co-worker, Nick, and two other co-workers have formed a secret vigilante group because Nick and the group are fed up with the pimps, gangs, and drug dealers who keep taking over the neighborhoods. Nick and his group are also sick and tired of the police, because the police always fail to protect people who become victims.
Eddie returns home from work one night, only to discover that Vickie has been stabbed, and Scott has been shot dead in an home invasion led by a street gang that Vickie encountered earlier. Frederico "Rico" Melendez, the leader of a Puerto Rican street gang, is arrested for Vickie's stabbing and Scott's murder. Assistant District Attorney Mary Fletcher plans to put Rico away for as long as possible, since New York doesn't 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 makes it clear that he has no faith whatsoever in the police
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