Slaughter (1972)

In one violent hour, the world of a proud, arrogant ex-Green Beret captain and Vietnam veteran named Slaughter (Jim Brown) blows up when a bomb kills his mother and fatally wounds his father.

Setting off on a trigger-happy vendetta, Slaughter visits his father’s white mistress, Jenny (Marion Brash) – a Mob contact like Slaughter’s father – to demand the killer’s name.  Jenny is shot through the window, but while she is dying, she reveals the mob will fly the killer out of the country that night and Slaughter charges in pursuit.

He surprises three thugs loading a light plane at an airstrip, kills one and wrecks the plane, but one escapes.

Waiting police arrest Slaughter and bigotted federal cop A W Price (Cameron Mitchell) tells Slaughter his attack destroyed international crime syndicate ledgers the government had trailed for a year.

Price offers him a deal: either take a murder rap or help find the Syndicate’s HQ – and the escaped killer – located somewhere in South America.

Left with little option, Slaughter signs a confession and agrees to go.

In South America, he is met by US Agents Kim Walker (Marlene Clark) and Harry Bastoli (Don Gordon).

Meanwhile, mob lieutenant Dominick Hoffo (Rip Torn) sends his svelte, blonde girlfriend, Ann Cooper (Stella Stevens) to deliver substitute ledgers to local Syndicate boss Mario Felice (Norman Alfe), at his casino headquarters near the capital.

Though Harry urges caution, Slaughter boldly goes to the casino to see Felice and meets Ann.

The next day Harry and Kim, spotting Felice in a black limousine, trail him to a skyscraper washroom where Harry slugs a mobster and discovers this “Felice” is just a dummy decoy.

Ann is sent as bait to live at Slaughter’s hotel, and a furious Hoffo watches Ann and Slaughter – obviously drawn to each other – poolside each day,

Disobeying Felice, Hoffo engages Frank Morelli (Robert Phillips) in Los Angeles to fly down and kill Slaughter. But the big man escapes and confronts Ann, who denies she knew about the contract and pleads to stay with him. They make love passionately.

That night Slaughter and Harry plant a camera under Felice’s limousine, and using the photographs, they trace the hidden mob HQ out in the deserted countryside.

At the syndicate headquarters, Hoffo and Frank kill a man loyal to Felice and Felice contacts Slaughter, promising to deliver the man he wants at the casino that night in exchange for his silence. But Hoffo moves to seize control and kills Felice.

Slaughter refuses to wait for help before making an assault on the mob complex, where he kills Frank and saves Harry, who has been wounded. But Hoffo escapes after blowing up the syndicate’s computer.

Slaughter goes in pursuit, and Hoffo’s car plunges into a ravine and overturns, rupturing the fuel tank. Slaughter descends on foot to where Hoffo lies trapped in the wreckage, with spilt gasoline oozing nearer, screaming for
help.

Slaughter flips a cigarette lighter, and a blast annihilates the car and Hoffo. His mission accomplished, Price tears up Slaughter’s murder confession.

With a title to die for – literally – this piece of blaxploitation tries to cash in on the supercool black avenger image institutionalised by Shaft (1971). But it’s set at such a fast pace by director Jack Starrett that you scarcely feel the pot-holes of the plot.

It has the ruthless efficiency of a well-oiled automatic weapon – and as much characterisation.

Slaughter
Jim Brown
Ann Cooper
Stella Stevens
Dominick Hoffo
Rip Torn
Harry Bastoli
Don Gordon
Kim Walker
Marlene Clark
A. W. Price
Cameron Mitchell
Frank Morelli
Robert Phillips
Jenny
Marion Brash
Mario Felice
Norman Alfe
Little Al
Eddie Lo Russo
Eddie
Buddy Garion
Gio
Roger Cudney
Uncle
Juan Jose Laboriel
Aunt
Francisca Lopes De Laboriel

Director
Jack Starrett

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