Fernando Di Leo (director)
Arrow (studio)
15 (certificate)
100 minutes (length)
15 June 2015 (released)
13 June 2015
Ugo Piazza may or may not have stolen $300,000 from an criminal currency exchange. His former boss, The Mikado and the police thing he has and have decided both to harass him into giving up the loot. He denies any involvement and say that the money isn't under his control but vanished elsewhere. When the Mikado hires him for a job that involves the blood of his friends being shed, he decides the only way to stop this madness is to fight back.
The poliziottesco films are a rare treat for film lovers or Italian genre fans. They mix classic, modern and new wave film techniques to craft dynamic films. They surfaced at the around the same time as films like Serpico and French Connection were released in America. As had happened before with the Giallo movement, the producers and directors took these films and their stylistic conventions as their base and then developed them further. More often then not it was cranked up and flexed until it became a raw and visceral experience of bullets and thugs (a reflection of how later in the1970s the Italian cinema movement turned toward exploitation films.) They also focused as much on topic of modern crime as their American film counterparts but did it in a way that steered around direct accusations. American film did the opposite and used as the focus the topics of crime and society but by naming and shaming in equal measure. Fernando Di Leo is the main director of note within this movement and as Bava was the man of Horror and knew his viewer, so Di Leo knew how and what his audience wanted.
This film is very much a high point in the poliziottesco genre. It interlaces a clever but simple plot with a smattering of violence, action and sex. The performances are typical, highly charged and with great gusto. The score is excellent, if not used very oddly in places. Then you have the writing and direction of Fernando Di Leo. He takes a solid enough book and crafts a very workable and engrossing script. It drives along at an even pace, has gentle exposition and doesn't force the viewer down side roads. It also opens the door to political and social commentary without being preachy in tone or too offensive in its execution. He also deals his craft softly and with a level of interaction. That is to say that he expects us to do some work, out of respect for are needs. Where however the film falls down is that it is a cult film of the order of say the Wicker man. You may come to it and say, this is awful and nonsense. You may come to it and say this is absent and uninvolved. What you are really saying is that you do not get it. This is nothing to be ashamed of. I don't get the Human Centipede but then I am interested in cinema that matters, not shat ters....