Lt. Wade’s a Los Angeles police officer and criminology professor, who comes thinks the legal system no longer works when a crook he’d arrested is acquitted on technicalities, Wade pursues his brand of vigilantism on a number of suspects. When Wade’s girlfriend, a uniformed officer named Wendy’s kidnapped and held on a yacht, Wade and his partner, Blake, attempt to rescue the young woman.
Jack Palance’s unique mixture of menace and simmering intensity ruminates through The One Man Jury, a B-movie that was made to fit the second slot of a double bill at the drive-inn. This is another entry in the vigilante sub-genre started by Death Wish, Rolling Thunder, Fighting Back, and a half dozen others. The One Man Jury is a solid programmer that combines the slasher film with the revenge flick.
The comparison to, or rather influence, of Bronson’s Death Wish cannot be overstated. But the movie plays a lot more like a film Charlie would make a few years later, in 1983, titled 10 to Midnight. The May/December romance between the aging Palance, a strict disciplinarian, and a young, liberal-minded female officer trainee is straight out of a Burt Reynolds movie of the era. And like other stars (Eastwood,George C. Scott, and Brando), no one can do Jack Palance like Palance.
The One Man Jury was retitled three or four times and received a wide re-release after Halloween (1978) invented the slasher genre. Under any of its various names, this is an entertaining independently-produced production that should be commended for its brutal force and for having a clear point of view, something today’s films are severely lacking. Look for a pre-Sopranos Paulie Walnuts in a small role and for the surprise ending.
Directed by: Charles Martin
Written by: Charles Martin
Starring: Jack Palance, Christopher Mitchum, Pamela Susan Shoop
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