Jan-Michael Vincent is charismatic and engaging as usual in the role of Tommy, a merchant seaman currently on suspension. So he has to kill some time in NYC while waiting for a ship assignment, and this is a city he doesn't particularly care for. He finds a place to stay in the Lower East Side, where the citizens are being plagued and terrorized by a colourful, multi-ethnic gang called The Souls.

Tommy's main purpose is to get the hell out of this slum the first chance he gets, but any viewer will feel confident that he will experience a change of heart. As it stands, he's the first area resident to actually stand up to these degenerate creeps. This inspires neighbours such as Carmine (Danny Aiello),Herbie (Frank Pesce),and Abbie (Don Blakely). Tommy finds romance with the lovely Marsha (Theresa Saldana),and befriends a kid (Fernando Lopez) who lives with a benevolent former fighter named "Whacko" (Lenny Montana).

As you can see, there are plenty of familiar faces here (future star Tony "Paulie Walnuts" Sirico is visible throughout),and they give a boost to a familiar storyline. Even so, director John Flynn ("The Outfit", "Rolling Thunder", "Out for Justice") is on top of his game, knowing just what buttons to push, and delivering top visceral entertainment. It's pure "root for the good guys, boo the bad guys" material. And these bad guys are absolute scum. Yet, they're democratic about who they torment, beating up senior citizens and young children alike.

Rudy Ramos is malevolent fun as swaggering Souls leader "Angel" (an ironic name, at that),and the radiant Saldana is a fine love interest, but Art Carney doesn't get that much to do as old Jewish grocer Abe.

Overall, "Defiance" is well worth your time, and it would make an appropriate double feature with William Lustigs' "Vigilante" (which also features Pesce and Blakely). However, it does have a sad, sordid postscript: after this, Saldana was victimized by a stalker who stabbed her multiple times; her ordeal was told in a TV movie.

Nicely scored by Dominic Frontiere, who realized full well what kind of music this urban exploitation-melodrama-thriller needed.

Seven out of 10.

Jan-Michael Vincent who usually stars in rural setting films either western or modern goes to the mean streets of the Lower East Side of New York for Defiance. But the plot for Defiance could have come from any number of B westerns back in the day.

Vincent is a seaman who's suspended from the union and anxious to get back to sea. While adrift on land, he takes an apartment on the Lower East Side where he gets involved in the local neighborhood struggles with a gang that's terrorizing the place.

The film plays like the James Stewart western, The Far Country where the new town of Klondike miners look to him for leadership against the gang headed by John McIntire. Vincent of course sees himself as an outsider and in point of fact he really is. In fact with his All American boy looks, he's definitely an outsider in the very ethnic Lower East Side.

Most of all until the end Vincent disappoints Theresa Saldana who's a nice Jewish girl who'd like to get a little something going with him, but not if he won't protect the neighborhood.

Art Carney plays the local delicatessen owner and Danny Aiello is a neighborhood tough from bygone days. The gang leader, truly a despicable character is played by Rudy Ramos, his is the grittiest and best part in the film.

This 'western' was shot on the Lower East Side, I recognized some of the area myself. It does give it a nice feel and a lot more realistic than the Lower East Side of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. Still it's really an average western on the mean streets of New York.

The classic western hero is a lone stranger who rides into a town terrorized by a gang of ruthless ruffians. The townspeople let these ruffians prey on them because they are either too weak or too cowardly to drive them out.

Meanwhile, the hoer is in the town out of some necessity. He prefers to mind his own business and look the other way. He is "just passing through" and doesn't plan to get entangled in the woes of others. Someway or somehow, however, the townspeople's fight becomes his fight, and he must stand up to the predators.

When you think of this classic western hero, movies like George Stevens' "Shane" with Alan Ladd or John Sturges' "Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracy come to mind. Indeed, westerns classics or otherwise are not being made in the numbers that they used to appear in on the silver screen. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the classic western hero has vanished. He is alive, well and kicking ass in John Flynn's "Defiance" with Jan-Michael Vincent. "Defiance" is one of the few decent movies—along with Michael Winner's "The Mechanic"—that Vincent made before he destroyed his life with alcohol, narcotics, and various other forms of abuse.

The setting of "Defiance" is not the old West. Instead, this tale of urban terror is set in the east side slums of contemporary New York City. The hero Tom Gamble, played with good natured but stalwart gusto by Vincent neither carries a six-gun nor rides a horse.

Gamble is a footloose mariner laid over in town following his six-month suspension by his union for brawling. He is "just passing through" and he is eagerly awaiting the next ship out of town. The first ship is bound for South America, but he has to learn Spanish before he can get hired onto it.

Gamble rents a cheap apartment and spends his time studying Spanish and drinking beer. Before long he gang that roans the neighborhood—they call themselves 'The Souls'—take an interest in the stranger.

The Souls attack a young boy that Gamble has befriended, rob a bingo game, and murder a retired boxing champ. Along the way, they manage to beat up Tom Gamble, too. But Gamble gets back on his feet and goes after these thugs.

The screenplay by producer Thomas Michael Donnelly is predictable, strictly a formula driven revenge actioneer. It appears as if Donnelly culled memorable scenes from "The Magnificent Seven," "Death Wish," "Billy Jack," and "High Noon" to make up his script.

Imitative though it may be, "Defiance" is definitely a superior effort. There are no car chases or shoot-outs. It is knives, fists, and Louisville sluggers. The dialogue sounds realistic and the characters are well-rounded by both Donnelly's script and a talented cast.

John Flynn, who directed "Defiance," has called the shots of several minor masterpieces such as "The Sergeant" with Rod Steiger, "The Outfit" with Robert Duvall, and "Rolling Thunder" with William Devane. Flynn specializes in tough, realistic, little action epics that recall the studio-bound James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart thrillers that Warner Brothers ground out in the 1930s and 1940s. Flynn crafts his movies with both economy and imagination. "Defiance" qualified as Flynn's best film when he came out in 1980 and a sleeper, too. Flynn has a knack for creating atmospheric situations and staging exciting rough & tumble fights that put to good use in "Defiance." He builds the action to a pressure cooker climax that explodes in a rousing finale. There isn't a slack moment in this fast-paced melodrama that has it share of humorous interludes.

Jan Michael Vincent delivers his finest, most mature performance. Although he clenches his jaws and knuckles his fists, he never plays Tom Gamble as a muscle-bound moron. As Gamble, he is a modest, ordinary hombre who stand up for what he believes in and rejects any phony claims to being a hero.

Art Carney is featured in a small role as a Jewish storekeeper who rebels against The Souls and gets severely beaten for his defiance. Rudy Ramos nearly steals the movie as the kingpin villain who heads up The Souls.

Altogether, "Defiance" is a little movie. There is nothing pretentious about it. Moreover, it is not profane, lewd, or gratuitous. The ending is happy, and the theme of the community that rejuvenates itself is inspiring without being dripping with too much sentiment.