Exterminator 2: Difference between revisions

| released = {{startFilm date|1984|9|14}}

'''''Exterminator 2''''' is a 1984 American [[actionVigilante thrillerfilm|vigilante]] [[action film]] written and directed by [[Mark Buntzman]] (with additional scenes directed by [[William Sachs]]), starring [[Robert Ginty]], [[Mario Van Peebles]], and [[Deborah Geffner]], with cameos by [[Arye Gross]] in his debut role, and [[John Turturro]] in his second role. It is the sequel to the 1980 film ''[[The Exterminator]]''.

The film opens with a robbery of a liquor store by a group of well-armed young men, as an unseen man listens to a police scanner. That man, wearing a welding mask, suddenly appears behind the store as the men flee, incinerating two of them with a flamethrower. The survivors flee underground, revealing their membership in a street gang led by a charismatic man named X ([[Mario Van Peebles|Van Peebles]]).

The film alternates scenes between John Eastland ([[Robert Ginty|Ginty]]) and X. Eastland develops a relationship with a dancer named Caroline ([[Deborah Geffner|Geffner]]). X announces his plans of leading the gang to rule the streets and the city. The gang robs an [[Armored car (valuables)|armored car]] and shoots down a police helicopter. A [[garbage truck]] passing by driven by Be Gee ([[Frankie Faison|Faison]]) swerves into the crowd of gangsters, scattering them right before the police can arrive. The gang performs a torch-lit execution of the armored car driver in the [[New York City Subway|subway]], while X's brother is incinerated by the masked man. Later, the film then follows Eastland and Be Gee, [[Vietnam veterans]], reuniting and driving around town in the garbage truck, visiting the bar where Caroline works, and splitting up as Eastland and Caroline take the garbage truck to Caroline's apartment. Simultaneously, a [[American Mafia|Mafioso]] visits the gang's lair in another torch-lit ceremony and offers to sell them [[heroin]], the gang tests a sample on a randomly kidnapped victim, and discover the location of Caroline's home by recognizing the garbage truck.

On a following day, Eastland and Caroline visit a park. The gang attacks Caroline when Eastland is distracted, beating her badly and breakingparalyzing aher leglegs. Eastland and Be Gee discuss crime later in that bar. The masked man appears in an alley and incinerates two more gangsters. Later on, Caroline and Eastland fight, and Eastland finally brings up [[Vigilantism#Vigilantism in the United States of America|vigilante justice]] with Be Gee. They arm themselves, ambush a group of gangsters in a park, and torture information out of one gangster. Eastland and Be Gee attack one of the gang's warehouses, only to discover that they were interrupting a drug sale between X and the Mafioso. In the ensuing firefight, Be Gee is killed by X, the Mafioso and his crew are blown up along with the money, and Eastland steals the heroin. In retaliation, the gang murders Caroline while Eastland mourns over Be Gee.

In a 2012 interview<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 22, 2012 |title=The Hollywood Fixer: "Galaxina" Director William Sachs |first=Sam |last=Weisberg |url=https://hidden-films.com/2012/10/22/the-hollywood-fixer-galaxina-director-william-sachs/ }}</ref> about his work, Sachs talked about the reshoots on ''Exterminator 2''. He was the one who came up with idea of the Exterminator wearing the flame proof mask throughout the movie:

In the interview Sachs also had a funny anecdote about the casting of Arye Gross, who played gang member Turbo in the movie: "He came in and read for me, and he was talking like Marlon Brando, through his nose. It was fantastic, so I gave him the part. And when we did the scene, he didn't talk like that. I said, 'You're not talking like you did in your reading!' And he said, 'I had a cold'".

Ginty couldn't return for reshoots for the scenes in which John wears a fireproof mask and burns down the gang members with a flamethrower. Those scenes were filmed with Robert Ginty's stunt double. Originally the only scene where John used the flamethrower to kill the gang members was in the ending when he burns the last few after he already killed most of the others with weapons from the garbage truck. A double was used for scenes where his face is not seen and the most obvious scene is when he phones Caroline and then runs to her home to find her dead. Deborah Geffner couldnwasn't asked to return as Caroline butbecause all her scenes would have been with Ginty, so a body double was used for the shot of her nude dead body. Mario Van Peebles and Frankie Faison did return for the reshoots.

The theatrical trailer shows the following deleted and alternate scenes from the original rough cut of the movie;:

* CoupleA couple of more extra shots from the scene when gang members attack Caroline while she is with John in the park.

Some lobby cards and stills also show several scenes cut from the movie;:

* John looking at wounded and dead people inside the club after the helicopter crashes on it and explodes,.

* Caroline helping someone who got injured in the same deleted club explosion scene,.

* John throwing the wheel cap on one of the gang members, who jumps onto Be Gee's garbage truck when he tries to stop the gang members from stealing the armored car,.

* After the armored car robbery and his fight with the gang members, John escapes from the police and is hiding somewhere while his head is covered with blood due to the injury he got during the club explosion,.

* Caroline taking care of John's head wound,.

* Longer version of the scene where X and his gang members attack Caroline in the park,.

The original ending in the rough cut of the movie was different, Instead of the chase scene between John and X in the factory, both of them confront each other after John kills all of X's gang members and get into a fight. X almost kills John, but Caroline shows up in her wheelchair (she did not die in the original cut, the scenes where John finds her dead body were also filmed during reshoots with Geffner's and Ginty's stand-inins) and shoots X, wounding him. When the police shows up, John puts X into the garbage truck and the chase starts between him in his truck and the police cars. The chase ends with John crashing the garbage truck into the river and X's dead body floating out of it. Some behind the scenes footage included in an old making-of documentary shows the filming of the fight scene between John and X in the original ending, sadly the garbage truck driving off a bridge into a river was never filmed because of the expense.

A shot of John taking his mask off in the ending after X dies is actually an outtake edited from the original scene the exterminator flames gang members at the end of the movie, which is why the scene cuts abruptly when he starts taking the mask off, this scene can actually be seen in the "making of" TV special for '"Exterminator 2''". According to some interview from the time when the movie was released, Ginty hated the way the movie was cut down and re-edited by the studio.

The 2 workprints of exterminatorExterminator 2 are extreme rough cuts and are of poor quality as they came from VHS tapes.

* {{AmgAllMovie movietitle|16415}}