THE EXTERMINATOR
US, 1980, 101 minutes, Colour.
Christopher George, Samantha Eggar, Robert Ginty, Steve James.
Directed by James Glickenhaus.
The Exterminator is familiar vigilante-vindictive, justice material, especially with Vietnam veterans, given right to weapons and war, adjusting traumatically to home and the vicious urban jungle. The film makes overstatements in some by now notorious violent sequences. Many audiences will be repelled by them as the sequences draw attention to themselves. Reminiscent of Taxi Driver, the film is an interesting exploration of American society (drawing in too many themes - Mafia, C.I.A., Carter administration, law and order platforms, Times Square obscenity) both intelligent and exploitive: Apocalypse Now! prologue, excellent New York opening and then the ugliness. Unfortunately, the performances are weak and detract from the impact. Frightening, ugly, but with point.
1. The impact of the film? Its reputation? Content? Graphic violence? Lurid New York atmosphere? Its being banned in several areas? Justifiably? For what reasons?
2. The background of the Vietnam war - the Apocalypse Now prologue, night - and the transition to New York night, the ending with New York in daylight? Explosions, men thrown about? The imprisonment, interrogation? The gore and bloodthirstiness? The echoes of Apocalypse Now with the beheading? The echoes of The Deer Hunter with the torture of the prisoners? Eastland and his sense of helplessness to go to the aid of a friend? (Later used in his going to the aid of Michael?) Michael and his execution of the Vietnamese? The melodrama of their rescue? An appropriate preface for the film? Did it help to explain Eastland's behaviour? The flashback memories of the beheading? The later comments on madness of the war in Vietnam? Eastland fighting in New York - doing the sane as in Vietnam, whether right or wrong, he didn't know. He just did it? The need for survival? Themes of violence, hatred? The nature of the enemy? Vietnam memories, the weapons brought back to be used, skills achieved and used? Trauma and paranoia? Violence as allowable in New York as in Vietnam? Yet government allowing it in Vietnam but not in New York? The validity of the point of view of the film? Eastland's right to be the exterminator? The balance with Dalton who was an official given the right to clean up New York? The irony of Dalton being destroyed by the government? The exterminator living to kill again and clean up? Was the exterminator healed of his memories - and did he still feel an obligation to clean up the jungle of New York?
3. The focus on New York: the helicopter shots for the credits and the glass buildings and lights? The ballad being softly sung - with its lyrics praising the hero? The detail of New York: warehouses, the streets, the ugliness of Times Square, Central Park, homes, hospitals, jazz concerts? The precincts? The wharves? The ending with New York in daylight - had there been some kind of movement from darkness to light? New York as symbolising American urban society?
4. How well did the film make the transition from Vietnam to America? Michael and his family? The attack at the warehouse, the fight, his being ripped by the pitchfork and paralysed? Maria and her grief? Michael and the hospitalisation, wanting to die? The senselessness of violence after surviving Vietnam? The instinctive drive for vengeance and extermination for cleaning up New York?
5. The characterisation of Eastland? In Vietnam and the rescue? Friendship with Michael and helping him? The credibility of his being transformed into the exterminator - his memories, feelings of friendship. hostility towards the ugliness of New York? BY what right did he act? what right did he understand for his actions? our glimpses of Eastland's room, his reading of Sartre, his stock of weapons? Work? Friendship? The brutality of his vengeance? The use of Vietnam techniques? The initial confrontation with the Ghouls? The extraction of information by the blowtorch, tying up the Ghouls in the disused warehouse and their being eaten by rats? The death of the Mafia boss through the mincing machine after the savagery of the dog? The killing of the manager of the Chicken Market, the death of the senator? The death of the rest of the Ghouls gang in the car crash? The effect of such exercise of violence on him? The indication given by his letter to the TV newscasters?
6. Eastland as a character - quiet, almost non-person, responding to challenge and yet seeming cold - his reaction to interrogating the Ghouls, to the Mafia boss, to the manager of the Chicken Market? The sympathy towards the prostitute? To the boy in the Chicken Market? To Maria? His visits to Michael and his gentleness? His decision to ask Michael about coming off the machines? His doing this? The grief in telling Maria? The confrontation with Dalton - and the friendly gestures? A survivor?
7. Themes of American law and order, the comments on the Carter administration and the lack of forcefulness the anticipation of the Reagan administration? American gun laws? The ugliness of the American city and jungle - in comparison with the Vietnam war? The role of the police, the vigilante? The C.I.A. and the basic manipulation? Of getting America into the war., of manipulating the administrations, the elections? The final shootings? Why was Eastland an exterminator?
8. The sketch of Dalton's character - brief, sufficient? Seeing him at work, the conventional policeman? Yet his background of Vietnam, his comments on its madness, his being the parallel to Eastland - even to his equipment and guns? The softer aspects of his ability to relate to Megan? The picnic in Central Park, the jazz concert, their talking together, the night at the hospital? His ability to relate - contrasting with Eastland's having friendship with Michael and Maria but going to the prostitute? Dalton as providing an alternative to the exterminator? His work at detection? The hospital discovery of Eastland's identity? The build-up to the raid, the confrontation? The irony of his ignoring the C.I.A. and dying at their hands? Eastland's living?
9. The sketch of Megan - love interest, doctor, work with Michael, the romantic interludes, a softer touch in the violence of the film?
10. The portrait of evil in the film - embodiments of evil: the Ghouls and their initial fight, the cruelty with the pitchfork, their being revenged with the blowtorch and the vermin? The standover men collecting the money at the meat market? The boss and his decision about neat prices for six months and his training the vicious dog, his being minced? The issues of young prostitutes and their being tortured sadistically? Pornography? The Chicken Market manager and the boys? The cruel senator? The old lady being mugged by the ghouls? The continuous Taxi Driver-style glimpses of the streets? Authentic? Exploited?
11. The graphic use of violence - in the tradition of so many American features, B features of the '70s? The violence drawing attention to itself? The writer-director's view of the situations and of the presenting of violence? How gratuitous was the violence - in itself, in its presentation? The value of overstatement?
12. A presentation of American society themes: law and order, justice, madness, madness and going berserk, healing? How can America cope with this kind of inferno situation?
