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'70s Vigilantes Take '07 in Hands

Posted Sep 14, 07 6:51 PM CDT in US,  Arts & Living 

(Newser) – Our era of economic upheaval and political powerlessness mirrors that of the 1970s, and now we’re getting our own silver screen vigilantes to clean up the mess. Everyman killers like Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle took action when the system wouldn’t, says Slate, and this season “vengeance is back with, well, a vengeance.”

New releases The Brave One and Death Sentence both feature former liberals “reformed” into vigilantes, enacting the same war “between civilized and savage” that '70s classics stole from the Western. In a post-Katrina, post-9/11 world though, what we fear is more complex: that disaster will strike, and no cavalry will pick up the pieces.

Source Slate

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movie  • film  • death sentence  • Jodie Foster  • vigilante justice  • Taxi Driver  • Dirty Harry


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