1973, Italy. Starring Franco Nero, James Whitmore, Fernando Rey, Duilio Del Prete, Silvano Tranquilli. Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Written by Maurizio Amati, Tito Carpi, Enzo G. Castellari.

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Back when Teleport City first made the big jump from print zine and BBS to the then-fledgling World Wide Web, Calvin Coolidge was still President of the United States and my writing style, fresh out of college, was somewhere considerably south of the highbrow level of refinement you regularly see on display these days. Anyone who chances across one of the old reviews in the archives will be assaulted by a fairly odious "Man, this movie rocks!" sort of idiotic enthusiasm. Cute in a teenager, perhaps, but unbecoming for a man of the world such as I have become. There are certain quintessential movies, however, that were reviewed in those heady days of youthful exuberance and limited writing skill, and slowly but surely, I've been going back and revisiting some of those films and giving them a more proper write-up using the sort of wit and verbal sophistication that regularly gets us declared as one of the ten least essential sites on the Internet, right below a website dedicated to Japanese nose bondage and mucous fetishes.

Generally, the more I liked a film, the worse the eventual review was likely to be. I tended to get carried away, like a victorious sailor just home from the Pacific and in need of a little female attention. Except that overbearing joy in regards to being a hero of the Pacific usually did get the lads amorous attention from beautiful ladies, where as that same level of glee directed toward celebrating, say, Zombie 3, has exactly the opposite effect on most women. But then, I didn't sit through Zombie 3 just so I could get laid. No, I sat through The Piano just so I could get laid. And you know what? In the end, it wasn't worth it.

But enough about my youthful indiscretions. Let us return to greener fields and frolic in them like jolly red-capped gnomes high on purple mushrooms. One of the films, indeed one of the entire genres that got lost in excitement upon discovering it was the gritty, violent Italian cop films from the seventies -- poliziotteschi, as they became known -- and in particular, the Umberto Lenzi-helmed thriller Violent Naples starring poliziotteschi poster boy Maurizio Merli and his imposing, bushy blond 1970s moustache. Violent Naples, which is also known as Violent Protection and Napoli Violenta, was the first of these films I'd ever seen, and to say it blew me away is a fair bit of understatement. I was ready to run down the street hooting and hollering (or hollerin', as we say down South) and singing the praises of the movie to anyone who would listen. As it turns out, most people on the street, when approached by me in that manner (I believe I was wearing a garbage bag dress and two small potato sacks for shoes), were willing to listen to me rant unintelligibly for as long as it took them to pull out their cans of pepper spray.

A few years removed from my initial reaction, I can sit back and examine the movie once again. My feeling for the movie is no less enthusiastic, but being who I am today, rather than go running into the streets like some unhinged lunatic who has meaningful conversations with bits of gravel, I can sit back in the warm glow of Violent Naples, light my pipe, and engage in reserved but no less enthusiastic reflection on the many merits of the film.

To begin, however, we should first look at another Maurizio Merli poliziotteschi film, 1975's Violent Rome, which introduces us to the character of bitter but compassionate police inspector Betti and serves as the film that would turn Merli, up until then little more than a bit player on the Italian film scene who specialized in appearing in films where producers hoped people would mistakenly identify him as bona fide Italian superstar Franco Nero, into an international star and the iconic face of an entire genre of film. But of course, before we can talk about Merli and Violent Rome, we have to talk about Franco Nero.

In 1971, audiences were delivered the message that the freewheelin' sixties were over, and so were the innocent fifties for that matter, when long-legged Clint Eastwood stepped onto the screen as "cop on the edge" Harry Callahan in the groundbreaking crime thriller, Dirty Harry. Other tough-as-nails cops and private eyes followed in Harry's cynical footsteps, including Shaft, Serpico, and a guy named Popeye Doyle. This new generation of cop film was a marked departure from past crime films, where guys like G-Man Jimmy Stewart would walk proudly through spotless backlots dispatching ne'r-do-wells with precision shots. Callahan and his compatriots were angry, disillusioned, and cynical. Rather than existing on stylized sets and sound stages, they strode through films shot on location on the decaying and beat-up urban centers of America. Everything they encountered was grubby, seedy, and mean. Rather than going home to quaint suburban homes and beautiful, devoted wives, they went home to shabby apartments, empty rooms, or into the company of hookers, strippers, and hardened femme fatales. They were world-weary, tired, and as a result of filmmakers' general distaste for authority as was honed during the late sixties, often as disgusted and at odds with their chief, the mayor, and city hall as they were with the criminal elements who were allowed to ride roughshod over a terrified and pathetically meek public.

Faced with a nightmare on both ends of the spectrum, these cops often chose to operate outside the system, since they saw no way to uphold the law or deliver justice by working within a broken system. There's an air of vigilantism in their actions -- the proverbial taking of the law into one's own hands. And the films often drew sharp criticism for what some saw as a glorification of abuse of power, the violation of civil rights, the pandering to paranoia, and the embracing of Wild West vigilante justice.

But these films, often with shaggy-haired, morally ambiguous anti-heroes in bell bottoms and leather jackets, informed by Eastwood's previous work in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, were anything but right-wing. In the end, bureaucrats and upstanding men of wealth and power are almost always revealed to be as vile and guilty as the common thugs on the street. And the heroes themselves are friendly with all sorts of shady underbelly characters that would drive a true blue right winger nuts. They pal around with hustlers and pimps, hookers and heroin addicts, recognizing that these people are often decent people who simply made bad decisions. The Dirty Harry cops aren't interested in busting some chump pot smoker at a club, or running some single mom in for prostitution. Their quest lies solely in bringing down the most vile criminals. The serial killers, or in many cases, the wretched scum who are protected by layers of money and power and social insulation. These were the villains the common man couldn't fight back against, and who couldn't be prosecuted within the system, because they were the system.

At best, these cops are morally gray, a reflection of the exhaustion and confusion America and the world felt after emerging form years of political and social turmoil to find the world torn asunder with no clear plan on how to put it back together. Crime went out of control in many cities, and the world became intimately familiar with phrases like terrorism and hijacking as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict played itself out on the global theater during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The average citizen felt trapped in their own homes while thugs and criminals, terrorists and corrupt politicians looted the world and left it all ablaze. In such a setting, it's no big mystery that people, even fairly liberal-minded people, could look at characters like these cops and identify with them. In other words, when you watch Harry Callahan grind his foot mercilessly on the serial sniper's wounded leg, you know what he's doing is wrong, but you still like that it's being done. Obviously, morally and politically, these films walk a line that is less liberal or conservative, less Republican or Democrat, and more a simple question of embracing a sort of libertarian self-reliance and eschewing of a bloated and ineffectual nanny-state that has raised a generation of people too timid to take care of themselves, and so turn to the state for everything from food to protection rather than relying on themselves.

In Italy, the social and political conditions were no better than in America, and in some ways, were a good deal worse. Crime was rampant. Red Brigade terrorist attacks had the population panicked. The 1970s were a decade out of control in many ways, and perhaps even more so than New York City, Italy and Naples embodied the confusion, angst, and frustration of the world. Rome's Fiumicino Airport was seen by most of the violent criminal and terrorist element of the world as a revolving door in and out of Europe. Traffic was so heavy and security so lax that you could all but waltz through customs while holding a rocket launcher. It wasn't like Italy wasn't already known for its homegrown brand of crime; now they were the nexus point for any crackpot brigade looking to kidnap a diplomat, assassinate a judge, or blow up a building.

It was in the midst of this chaos that Italian screenwriter Vincenzo Mannino wrote the movie High Crime -- aka La Polizia incrimina la legge assolve -- starring tough-as-nails Franco Nero as Vice-Commissioner Belli and directed by Italian genre film staple Enzo G. Castellari (who's directed everything from this film to 1990 Bronx Warriors). Obviously inspired by Dirty Harry, the film was a huge hit, and with the muzzle flash of a blazing Magnum, the poliziotteschi genre roared onto screens, boasting untold levels of brutal violence, flared slacks, and drooping seventies moustaches.

I'm going to refer to the movie here as High Crime for the scientific reason that it's shorter to type than the original Italian title. High Crime centers around noble-but-frustrated vice cop Belli, who is on the verge of busting up one of the biggest drug smuggling rings in Genoa. Unfortunately, the ring includes several extremely powerful and prominent citizens, and Belli's boss is unwilling to pull the trigger on the operation for fear that their evidence isn't good enough. He'll be satisfied with nothing less than absolute and ironclad proof that will dismantle the cartel permanently, but Belli knows that airtight and total proof is simply not realistic in any case.


Pressure comes from all sides to either wrap up or drop the case, and Belli finds himself in the middle of an ultra-violent street war declared on him by the criminal men with the most to loose. He's also struggling to take care of a young daughter and girlfriend who are supportive and proud of what he does, but at the same time are frustrated by the amount of time Belli devotes to his crusade. At the same time, Belli discovers that even though he can take care of himself in a firefight, the men against whom he's up against are more than willing to strike where he's vulnerable -- specifically, family and loved ones.

High Crime is one of those rare action movie that does pretty much everything ight. Franco Nero is absolutely mesmerizing as Belli. He's pretty much at the height of both his popularity and attractiveness here, and uses his looks to convey smoldering intensity mixed with world-weariness. Although Nero commands the movie with undeniable charisma, it's not left up to him to carry the weight of the film on his shoulders. The supporting cast is equally superb, a far cry from the assembly of cardboard throw-aways that often populate the background of an action film. As Commissioner Scavino, James Whitmore could have lapsed into what quickly became the all-too-common stock character of the overbearing commissioner, sitting behind a giant desk and gnawing on a giant cigar while screaming about how the hero had crossed the line.

Instead of taking this route, Scavino emerges as a particularly sympathetic character. His heart is with Belli, and he wants to take these bastards down just as bad as his number one officer. But he also knows the bureaucratic game that has to be played and knows how easy it will be for the majority of big-time players to escape scot-free unless the evidence against them is so overwhelming that no amount of political connection or wealth will be able to buy their way out. Instead of being little more than a blustering foil for Nero's more active protagonist, Scavino is a glimpse at Belli's future, a man who once burned with passion but finds himself discouraged by red tape and political maneuvering at every turn.

As good as the cast may be, though, and as tight as the script is, the real star here is Enzo Castellari's direction. If you only know Castellari as the slow-motion abusing director of goofball sci-fi actioners like New Barbarians and Escape from the Bronx, then you're going to have to reassess your opinion of him when he works in the medium of the gritty cop film. Even his silliest outings during the eighties boasted a higher level of energy and insanity than the bulk of what surrounded them -- just compare the crazy action of New Barbarians to a drearier post-apocalypse movie like Exterminators from the Year 3000. High Crime is a burning example of just how good Castellari could be when his heart was in the production. The film bristles with action and, even during the dramatic scenes and exposition, there is enough tension to ensure that violence remains a lurking character even when its not making its presence directly known.

But when it is making itself known? That's when the movie kicks into severe overdrive. High Crime basically operates under the presumption that Dirty Harry and Death Wish were good, but they just weren't grim enough. People in them were just too happy. High Crime overloads on brutal street violence -- not just overripe and juicy squibs, though they certainly represent themselves here, but Castellari's big pre-occupation here seems to be human-to-vehicle mayhem. The film's opening scene is an extended chase sequence which culminates in a fiery car bomb sending the mutilated remains of a potential witness hurtling from a charred and twisted vehicle with surprisingly effective special effects. From there, Castellari bounces skulls off of windshields and is more than willing to dwell in graphic detail on every shattered skull and crushed limb -- even if it belongs to a child. He doesn't delve into flat-out gore, but there is a bared-teeth, unflinching brutality to the violence that makes it far more effective than moist gore effects.

Castellari keeps the pace frantic, but he understands that the key to making a movie like this exceptional is to be sure you squeeze emotion and character development into the mayhem. Exploration of character isn't exactly deep, but Castellari and crew do take the time to make sure you care about the characters, which makes the action all the more exciting (something I wish modern action films understood -- action for the sake of action, featuring players you care nothing about -- is more tedious than it is thrilling). High Crime invests actual time and energy in the characters, and that's what makes it an enduring film -- and that's why it was able to spark an entire genre. Although High Crime was inspired by Dirty Harry, High Crime itself is the movie that became the template for the glut of tough Italian cop films that followed. Franco Nero defined both the attitude and appearance that would become commonplace among subsequent protagonists, and Castellari defined the take-no-prisoners approach to portraying gruesome acts of violence. The score by Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis would also become a benchmark for later films, and G&M themselves became one of the most prolific composers of scores for Italian cop movies.

High Crime put all the pieces together remarkably, and where as some "first films" that kick off a whole trend are, themselves, not very good (Sweet Sweetback, I'm looking in your direction), High Crime manages to be one of the top three or four films of the poliziotteschi genre, and one of the top films in a decade that produced pretty much the best action films ever made. As good as High Crime is, though, the genre had it's signature star and even better films waiting in the wings.

Continued...

Labels: Director: Enzo Castellari, Poliziotteschi, Stars: Franco Nero