An important element of any film that involves
revenge or is a Dirty Harry styled film is how vile the film makes the villains.
The viler the better. You want evil and sadism dripping out of the pores
in their body. Cretins from hell. You want it to get to a point where you
feel like picking up a gun or rock and killing them yourself. When they finally
get killed as they always do in these sorts of films, it is an emotional
release. The whole film has built up slowly to that moment. Some film industries
are better at this than others. Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s, Japan in the
70s and Italy in the 70s's. Part of that depends on the society, on the film
industry and what is allowable. When Hollywood released Dirty Harry in 1971
it created a hullabaloo of controversy and charges of fascism.
This film could never have been made in
America in the 1970s - way too nasty and it makes Harry look like a model
citizen. Today it would probably go unnoticed. But the Italian Poliziotteschi
films of the 70s were masterful at creating truly despicable characters you
could hate, that you wanted to see them killed. Slowly. As brutally as they
killed. Often, they were rapists or misogynists and even killers of children.
This film has a slew of truly degenerate
villains and you can't wait till they get theirs. And when the rogue cop
just starts killing them, no thoughts of fascism float through your brain
at that moment. Just satisfaction. Later maybe you think, wait a second,
you can't have the good guys just illegally massacring the bad guys - but
that is only if you think about it at all. This attitude was popular in Italy
at the time as it was ridden by street crime and organized crime. There are
many of these films in which an honest cop is stymied by the system and the
bureaucracy and finally resorts to doing what has to be done outside the
system. This film is one of the better examples of that. It takes its time
in setting up the orgasmic scene when they all die. And as bloody as it is,
it is almost too quick. The skeet shooter knew how to do it right.
Arm, arm, leg, leg, kill shot.
Fabio Testi is the cop. Honest, determined
and tough. In an early scene his van is rolled over down a hill with him
in it - I am told that this was a real stunt as the camera inside the van
shows shattered glass flying about - and a week later he is back on the job
arm cast and all. He is after a gang of vicious punks who are running a protection
racket in the old-fashioned way going back to Capone - threaten, destroy
property, beatings and rape (btw, the young girl who is raped is the director's
daughter - how he could put her through that is weird). But he is getting
nowhere with arresting them or getting to the big boss.
The store owners are afraid to testify and
the crooks have a good lawyer. He gets a criminal friend (Vincent Gardenia)
to try and infiltrate the gang, but he can only get so much information.
Eventually - and we have all been waiting for this moment - Testi goes fuck
it, I am just going to kill them all. Two good shoot-outs and thankfully
no romance! A romance has done more damage to these films than all the bullets
shot. Keep women out of these films. It is directed by Enzo Castellari who
was one of the top directors within this genre along with Fernando Di Leo.
Bruno Corbucci and Umberto Lenzi.
