An Eye for an Eye (1981)

An Eye for an Eye is a 1981 American crime action film directed by Steve Carver. It stars Chuck Norris, Christopher Lee, Richard Roundtree, Matt Clark, Mako Iwamatsu, and Maggie Cooper.On a $4 million budget, the film earned $12 million worldwide.

Plot.

Undercover San Francisco narcotics cops Sean Kane (Norris) and Dave Pierce (Terry Kiser) head into a dark alley to meet up with an informant named Tony Montoya (Mel Novak), who promises to break their big investigation wide open, by providing the name of the oriental drug ringleader. Minutes later Pierce is dead, after having been shot, hit by a car, and burned. Kane gets into trouble with his boss, Captain Stevens (Roundtree), for sending one of the killers flying out a third-story window to his death in view of the public. Rather than face discipline, and told to keep his distance by his superiors, Kane decides to quit the force, and sets out to exact vengeance.

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Dave’s girlfriend, reporter Linda Chan (Rosalind Chao) is also angry, and vows to bring the drug gang down herself, by way of investigative reporting and public exposure. However, when Linda uncovers the secret that Kane and Pierce never found, she too is killed. Kane sets out for revenge, as does Linda’s grieving father James Chan (Iwamatsu), and Linda’s close friend, news editor Heather Sullivan (Cooper). Kane asked his friend and fellow detective Tom McCoy (Clark) to keep him informed about the case, but Stevens takes charge of the case, and all the larger aspects of the case go through him.

Kane and Chan are attacked by hitmen connected to the drug cartel. With Heather’s help, Kane sees Montoya near a ship in one of Linda’s televised news reports. Linda’s boss and mentor, editor-in-chief Morgan Canfield (Lee), offers Kane’s support to find the killers. Kane finds Chan confronting Nicky LaBelle (Stuart Pankin), Montoya’s boss. LaBelle reluctantly reveals Montoya’s location. After Kane and Chan confront Montoya, he reveals that he was bait, because the drug dealers were on to them. Before he can revealed names, the same hitmen who killed Linda open fire and kill Montoya. Kane suspects a mole is helping the dealers remove any loose ends.