The following text is from ALPHA FILMS LIMITED promotional material for the movie doing back to 1980.
The Exterminator, a Mark Huntsman film written and directed by James Glickenhaus, is a story of violence set against the Bronx underworld.
John Estland (Robert Ginty) and his friend, Michael Jefferson (Steve James), survive the hell of Vietnam, with Jefferson barely saving Eastland's life under heavy enemy fire. But the hell doesn't end when they return to the Bronx. Jefferson is brutally attacked and his neck broken whilst saving Eastland from a gang of thugs. Jefferson is paralyzed for life, leaving his wife and children in poverty. Eastland swears revenge on the streetgang responsible - "The Ghetto Ghouls" - whose murders he commits with unthinkable brutality. Eastland doesn't stop there: to help find money to support Jefferson's family, he preys on the underworld and its resources. The more he's forced into this world, however, the more he becomes involved in a one-man-war against the vicious criminals who live outside the law. He becomes an indestructible task force, obsessed with a righteousness that recognizes only his own morality. A series of incidents follow, gruesome enough to turn the stomachs of New York's finest. And each one increases the stature of the man who becomes known as "The Exterminator" - the man who can do what the cops can't.
While the public sees him as a hero, the police regard him as a one-man vigilante committee and a possible psychopathic killer to be dealt with accordingly.James Dalton (Christopher George), their finest detective is assigned to track him down.
At the same time, Dalton strikes up a friendship with a woman named Megan (Samantha Eggar), who, unknown to either one, is the doctor entrusted with the care of Jefferson, Eastland's friend. Their romance grows as does Eastland's revenge for unsolved crimes, and this relationship gives Dalton the lead for which he's been looking.
In the meantime the CIA has entered the case with instructions to terminate The Exterminator: its election year and no time for a popular hero to undermine the incumbent's ineffective law and order platform.
Fortunately for The Exterminator, Dalton catches up with him first only to be surprised by Eastland's willingness to give himself in. At that moment, shots ring out, catching both men in the chest. One shot sends Eastland off the waterfront catwalk 200 feet into the water. The other catches Dalton in the same manner, killing him instantly. The CIA have left no survivors. Or so they think.
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