Head Canon: Fighting Back (1982)

Welcome to Head Canon - a collection of weird and wonderful films that live rent-free in my brain. Nobody's saying these are the best movies ever made, but every week, I'll deliver some thoughts on a new title that, for one reason or another, has set up shop in my consciousness for the foreseeable future.

In the early '80s, we were treated to a set of psychotic vigilante movies. This week's pick, Fighting Back, is perhaps the craziest of the post-Death Wish crop...

There aren’t many great Philly movies.

Meanwhile, New York has a veritable treasure trove of defining cinematic documents. Los Angeles has played itself numerous times (after all, Hollywood did move West after New Jersey’s weather scared it away). Chicago has Michael Mann. Miami’s got both the Blues (’90) and the Connection (’87). Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez put Austin on the map. Seattle plays home to practically every erotic thriller known to man. The list goes on.

Still, Philadelphia feels underrepresented for whatever reason. That said, the ones the City of Brotherly Love does have to its name are pretty dang good. De Palma’s Blow Out (’81) isn’t just a great Philly movie, but possibly the greatest American film of all time. Obviously, there’s Rocky (’76). Trading Places (’83) ranks with the funniest comedies ever made (and teaches you not to be a jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving). Philadelphia (’93) gave us an awesome Springsteen song and Tom Hanks’ first of a few Oscars. M. Night Shyamalan spooked us with kids seeing dead folks in Center City.

Honestly? Not too shabby. Quality over quantity. Go Birds.

Fighting Back (’82) isn’t necessarily a great Philly movie, but it does successfully encapsulate the insanity of claiming America’s first capital as your stomping grounds. Born out of the post-Death Wish (’74) boom of vigilante cinema, Italian grocer John D’Angelo (Tom Skerritt, styled to look like Fishtown Bronson) is fed up with the haters, lunatics, and punk trash that have overtaken his block. Growing up, he and his cop buddy, Vince Morelli (Michael Sarrazin), used to play in the park that’s just across the street from his store. Now, you can’t even go out at night without getting mugged or hassled by the pimps, pushers, and users who’ve set up shop in the places John has numerous fond memories of.

Things go from bad to worse for D'Angelo after a deranged hustler (Pete Richardson) runs his car off the road after John’s wife, Lisa (Patti LuPone), takes it upon herself to interfere in the pimp’s business. Adding extreme insult and injury, Lisa miscarries as a result of the accident. Seemingly the very next night, John’s mother (Giana DeAngeles) is attacked and dismembered during a pharmacy hold-up after she leaves his shop. To put it mildly, this Kensington Avenue boy is having quite a shitty week.

So, John does what any self-respecting Phillies fan would: he rallies the local neighborhood and forms his own goon squad, calling themselves The People’s Neighborhood Patrol. Only instead of waiting for crimes to happen, they set up shop in an abandoned fire hall, build themselves a veritable tank out of an Oldsmobile, and start smashing up the local dive bars and strip clubs where the riff raff hang out. Because, in case you haven’t heard, Philly doesn’t tolerate disrespect. Just ask JD Drew. Or Santa Claus.

As a result of his exploits and some intrepid reporting from local newsman Michael Taylor (character actor royalty, David Rasche, probably working for FOX29 and not NBC10), John becomes a local legend, drawing the eyeballs of both City Hall and local mob Don, Donato (Peter Brocco, stepping in for the Chicken Man, who was just blown up in his house last week). The Mayor worries D’Angelo might run for his seat. And the Don? Well, he can’t have this hoagie-slinger cutting in on his profits.

Sandwiched in-between two killer animal pictures - Alligator (’80) and Cujo (’83) - and released the same year Cannon Films resurrected Bronson’s signature vengeance franchise with the morally repugnant Death Wish II (’82), Lewis Teague’s Fighting Back is one of the more insane American revenge thrillers, mostly because it’s attempting to have something deeper on its mind beyond pure, unadulterated payback. What motivates an Italian grocer to try and take his neighborhood back from the scum that’s invaded it? Is it simply a desire to return to a normalcy he once knew, or is there something much more sinister lurking beneath the shopkeeper’s surface? Moreover, would the people of Philadelphia celebrate such a crusade once it hits the airwaves?

Superficially, D’Angelo’s quest isn’t too far removed from the urban nightmares that populated movie houses in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Think: Bill Lustig’s Vigilante (’83) or the very similar Jan-Michael Vincent 'hood cleanup programmer, Defiance (’80). It even shares a modest amount of filmic DNA with the anti-landlord disco kung fu extravaganza, Death Promise (’77), or the DTV ‘90s backyard stunt spectacular, Parole Violators (’94). These movies reveled in urban decay, painting American cities as post-apocalyptic wastelands, overrun with guns and thugs, where no self-preserving person would live.

A common denominator uniting these movies is how working-class, ordinary folks felt powerless to stop the decimation of their communities from occurring. But is their desperation born from actual danger, or are they simply a bunch of racists, targeting folks who don't look like them? Thanks to an unlikely Alien ('79) reunion between Skerritt and Yaphet Kotto (playing the awesomely named Ivanhoe Washington), Fighting Back actually gets to ask that question directly. Hell, Kotto's interpretive dance choreographer straight-up ups shout it at D'Angelo, forcing John and his goons to potentially re-evaluate how they're picking their targets. Now, the movie never fully reckons with PNP's potential profiling, but the fact that it even approaches the topic gets your wheels spinning in a way you didn't expect from one of these grungy thrillers.

Yet where Fighting Back is truly different from its vigilante brethren is in how it chooses to stretch the narrative beyond street-level thrills and start giving us reactions from varying levels of power. To call this movie "The Wire of vigilante flicks" feels incredibly stupid to type, but that doesn't necessarily preclude it from being kinda true. Much how the detectives would sometimes side with Paul Kersey during his multiple self-appointed strident crusades (and even step out of his way in some cases), the folks in City Hall start contemplating what course of action would be best when publicly addressing D'Angelo's coordinated retaliation. Lock the guy up, and they might have a backlash on their hands. Side with the angry man, and they may just have a new opponent come Election Day.

Which begs the question: would Philly elect a known vigilante to public office? Stranger things have certainly happened in that city. After all, this is the place where they grease telephone poles following an Eagles Super Bowl victory, knowing full well those ruffians are going to climb them no matter what they do. Philly prides itself on being a rough and tumble metropolis, where only the strongest survive. And even if you do happen to win in the end, the dirty denizens who call it home are still going to talk massive amounts of shit to you. A guy who took it upon himself to start upholding the law with his crazy boys getting elected to City Councilman doesn't sound too far-fetched, once you put it in context with the city's gnarly spirit.

There's a dearth of specificity that prevents Fighting Back from being a great Philly movie, and the details it does include won't sit quite right with anyone who's spent any time in the city (John calling the sandwiches he sells "heroes" instead of "hoagies" is possibly enough to not get him elected). Still, what Teague's picture lacks in location, it more than makes up for in savage violence. By the end, the movie even seems to condone John's actions, spilling over into near-satirical levels of victory thanks to his personal war. Pauline Kael once wrote that Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs ('71) was "the first American film that is a fascist work of art". Fighting Back may be the second.

Fighting Back is available now on Blu-ray from Arrow Home Video.