Weapons of death
Henry Silva plays Santoro, a tough crook operating in Naples whose violent crime spree is driving the city into chaos. Tough Cop Belli sets his sights on Santoro and the two begin a duel of wits where one man must die.
More tough poliziotteschi with a lean brutal plot that doesn't outstay its welcome and has a terrific ending. It's got plenty of nasty moments at play including a genuinely wince inducing prison yard castration scene.
Contraband
Speaking of brutal poliziotteschi.... Its almost as if the rest of the Italian film industry was saying "look how nasty, vicious and amoral we can be" Fulci turns to them and says "hold my beer".
Fabio Testi is a smuggler who gets drawn into a brutal gang war when a new, vicious Don comes to town intent on moving the trade from ciggies to hard drugs. The film is genuinely nasty with rape, disfigurement by Bunsen burner, Liberal doses of claret overloaded into squibs. Fulci's poliziotteschi is smart enough to acknowledge the sub-genre's influences with westerns playing on T.V. He also seems to be one of the few directors not to simply use Fabio Testi as a generic tough guy, like with four of the apocalypse he genuinely runs Test's character through the grinder. Giving him a real sense of vulnerability.
Syndicate sadists
Thomas Milian teams up with Umberto Lenzi again, mixing up the crime film with Fistful of Dollars. Milian plays a tough as nails biker named Rambo who begins playing two gangs off against each other in a bid to rescue a kidnapped child.
This ones pure entertainment from beginning to end. It doesn't bog itself down with politicking, double crosses or anything extraneous to the plot at hand. It moves along at a cracking pace with Milian kicking a lot of ass. It might come across a little cheesy in the irony drenched 21st century but for me its solid no nonsense fun.
The cynic, the rat and the fist
Maurizio Merli plays Leonardo Tanzi another tough as nails cop as one would expect from the poliziotteschi. His nemesis Luigi Maietto aka "Chinaman" played by Thomas Milian escapes from Jail and tries to have him killed. Thinking he has succeeded Chinaman goes about his business. However Tanzi is still alive and sets about covertly taking the gang down.
Not as outright fun as Syndicate sadists its still a terrific little thriller with a great cast and plenty of action. Nice to see John Saxon turning up as a Mafia Boss.
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