Vengeance

• Original title: Kid Vengeance
• Directed by Joseph Manduke
• August 1977 (US)

A boy seeks revenge after a group of bandits kills his family.

Something I must bring up is that as the villain of the story McClain, Lee Van Cleef has a rather striking resemblance to modern Willie Nelson. It is rather uncanny. All that’s missing is a cowboy hat. This is one of several distracting things that you will focus on over the story of Vengeance. Another is some very modern eyewear on a character. Within less than 10 minutes we see a character with appropriate for 1977 eyewear.

The attempt here is for a story about a child’s journey into maturity by getting justice or revenge for the killing of his family. Young Tom (Leif Garrett) receives no strong guidance. No moments other than with McClain where things are brought into focus. Even Isaac (Jim Brown), who somewhat helps Tom, offers no guidance but is more just some muscle.

Jim Brown is one of the other big names in this and he kind of comes and goes. He’s more flunky to help Tom get through some physical hoops that he can’t do himself than he is an actual character or mentor of any type. His presence in the movie is because he came across the baddies earlier.

Tom may have a mission of vengeance (and we get a good look at what happened to his family), the movie itself is slow moving. It takes its good time getting to where it is going which is nowhere epic or dangerous. There isn’t a lot that happens from Point A to Point B.

With names like Jim Brown, Lee Van Cleef, and Leif Garrett riding high on his fame as a teen idol you would think given the time this came out a little more might be going on. Or a little more dialogue. Nobody says much. There is some action but more just riding horses and occasionally lighting a fire. This is Tom’s story but he never develops or grows or gets expanded up. Brown despite his character potentially having useful skills does nothing.

McClain is an interesting character but he as a villain largely never seems villainous. Other than the rape you could easily forget he did anything bad because he is almost never equally dangerous to that moment. If you start with a rape you cannot backtrack. It’s almost inconsequential to the character.

Neither Brown nor Van Cleef make an impact with Garrett being forgettable in their collective performances. This movie you can recall in very broad strokes but when you come in a smidge you are hard pressed to think of a single thing. It is a movie ahead of its time in that it is made to be background noise on a streaming service before that type of service was even a concept.

Very little money was spent here. I know this came out at the tail end of the Western’s dominance, but it looks like they spent almost nothing. The camera does nothing and the shots are incredibly tight. YouTube productions look better.

With nothing to talk about and done on a meager budget, Vengeance was a disappointment. That is as kind as I can be.