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Defiance is a dramatic action film starring Jan Michael Vincent as an artistic dock worker named Tommy Gamble who is looking for affordable temporary housing and finds it into a poor, gang infested neighborhood in New York City’s East side. Tommy becomes involved in a romance with a neighboring tenant named Marsha, known more commonly as Angel by the members of the gang she leads. When they first meet, Angel, who is played by Rudy Ramos, gets offended by Tommy when he stands up to her. The conflict between Tommy and Angel is one of many that provide the gritty conflict between community members who stand up and fight criminals and each other when the police won't help resolve conflicts in their community.

Tommy tries to stay out of the conflict and keep to himself by spending his time working on his art while he waits for his next assignment as a seaman. It is hard for him to avoid becoming involved though, when the leader of a local gang of guys, Carmine, played by Danny Aiello, decides he is going to fight to take his neighborhood back from the criminals and resolve the crime once and for all.

With little convincing, Tommy finds himself converted to the cause. Tommy begins to fight for the neighborhood with Carmine’s violent guy gang called the Souls. They administer the violent justice the police won’t. As the fighting gets out of hand, Tommy turns against the Souls, and soon he finds himself fighting against the Souls whom he shared allegiance with before in an attempt to change their ways. He is slowly successful in his effort to convert their methods, and soon he even changes the attitudes of his neighbors who once were intimidated by the Souls.

Defiance was directed by John Flynn, and the movie was shot entirely in New York, making the film an accurate historical vision of the real East Side of Manhattan during the 1980’s.

Defiance is a 1979 thriller with a runtime of 1 hour and 42 minutes. It has received moderate reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.1.