Vigilante Force

Californian small town becomes lawless boom town after the re-working of dormant oil deposits. To restore order, the helpless legal guardians draft Vietnam hero Kristofferson, the town's erstwhile rebel. What emerges is an awkward combination of cheapo war and cowboy comics: gold replaced by black gold; a near-parody of saloon rowdiness; a brooding anti-hero; urban guerilla warfare that explodes into open hostilities. Kristofferson (long-haired) shuffles through quite convincingly, especially as his inability to adapt to a peacetime situation becomes more apparent. His Abel-like brother Jan-Michael Vincent (short-haired) does more driving than acting, and Victoria Principal is almost totally self-effacing as his girlfriend, but Bernadette Peters plays an ill-treated, down-at-heel, after-hours singer with real style. The dialogue veers towards the self-consciously smart-ass (enraged drinker attacks jukebox playing '70s rock: 'There must be a Buddy Holly record here somewhere!'), and the direction has irritatingly jagged, grisly violence alternating with manly introspection.