Handgun (1983) Directed by Tony Garnett
Just by beholding the understated editing and dignified storytelling of Tony Garnett’s non-exploitation rape-revenge flick you grasp that this is not only effective scrupulous filmmaking dealing with an inherently unscrupulous genre but also a pensive character piece that is socially self-aware of the genre’s politics. Karen Young plays a winsome Boston schoolteacher who has just moved to Dallas where she is sexually abused by a conniving gun-toting zealot lawyer played by Clayton Day. America’s fixation with guns being harnessed by the ying yang storytelling of rape-revenge fare to delve into the chauvinistic issues of the Southern tradition can be seen as a facile attempt at social realism cashing in on genre cinema, but this is not just any kind of constructive realism, this has almost the same feel of a kitchen sink play, it is the assured and gritty flair of a cineaste rooted in the British realism methodology. And here Garnett deploys them with enviable dexterity to treat Karen Young’s impressive performance with empathetic deference, an almost religious touch. But these technicalities are also there to divulge harsh and ugly truths about the pernicious effects that conservative demagoguery has on society. The startling character arc of our lady vigilante – she cuts her hair and becomes a nimble gunslinger – is not martyrdom or abasement, it is political subversion and social protest, after all her tragedy is interchangeable with the ideological tragedy of America. But the reaction is salutary (and sometimes mandatory), perhaps not in the shape of a vigorous revolver, but certainly in the shape of an empowered, badass woman ready to kick the shit out of her abuser. For that alone and in many respects, Handgun is one of the most justified rape-revenge flicks ever made.