Fango bollente

No mobsters here. No bank robberies either. Just three working Joes, working day in, day out. Joe works in a science lab, staring at rats and working on computers. His wife is a career woman who's always at work (and not averse to forwarding her career by giving her boss a chewy!). His mate lives with several billion family members who won't shut up. The third guy can't get a minute's peace due to his house falling to bits and his neighbours arguing. It's enough to drive them all mad.

Which it does! These three, led by Joe, start acting out against society in every way possible. They start off by starting a football riot where dozens are injured and one person dies. The case is given to perpetually tired looking cop Enrico Salerno, who initially encouters, but does not suspect, Joe while attending computer lessons at the lab Joe works at (the computer-based dialogue here is hilarious by the way). Enrico is down on his luck as he was demoted after ramming some bad guy in his car, so he's playing things a bit softly this time round...at least at first.

I've said it before - Joe Dallesandro can't really emote, but he's good as an angry psychopath. His trio become the scourge of society as the add murder to their list of crimes, at first stabbing a truck driver during a road rage incident, then killing a pimp and a hooker. They also kill a member of high society by impaling her on the fork of a fork lift truck, using an effect so good I can't figure how they did it.

This film plays out like some kind of Italian Clockwork Orange with kind of similar themes. If I was a man who thought about stuff I'd say that this whole film is a commentary on man's inability to successfully channel his aggression in everyday mundane tasks and even the acceptable societal outlets for such feelings (football being the glaring example here). It evokes the 'violent male ape' hypothesis that violence is inherent in humans and that these violent tendencies are as natural as love, affection and hunger.

I'm not a thinking man however so I'll just say that Sal Borghese looked real goofy when we first see him.

This is a difficult watch, no lame brain entertainment, no shoot 'em up.

Was this before it's time or just showing how the cycle continues? 48 years after it's release and nothing much has changed.

Three bored drones go on a violent spree because...

Maestro Vittorio Solerno's raven dark poliziottesco 'Savage Three' exposes the increasingly bestial proclivities of three workmates, headed by handsome hedonistic brute Ovidio (Joe Dallesandro). Spending the days working anonymously for a modern-looking data collection firm but spending their nights perpetrating myriad barbarous acts of arbitrary violence. Savage Three are not political upstarts, their spontaneous campaign of cruelty, blithely orchestrated to assuage the monotony of a dour, stultifying regimented office life. These ruthless crimes drawing the attention of laconic commissario Santaga (Enrico Maria Salerno), an idiosyncratic sleuth whose hunch that the grisly killing spree is the work of amateur thrill killers marking him out to be an eccentric maverick! The dogged Santega's unerring gut instinct leads him ever closer to the inscrutable Ovidio, his psychotic debaucheries, exploding in a final, fatal act of stomach-churning savagery from which there is no return. Solerno's disturbingly brutal narrative, while remarkably explicit, has a profound intelligence, giving The Savage Three an emotional gravitas that feels uncomfortably relevant even today.

How to describe "Fango Bollente" accurately? It's Italians doing what Italians do best, namely copying the rudimentary idea of a successful cinema hit and make their own version that is less polished but much more violent & fast-paced. In this case, the plot is clearly inspired by "A Clockwork Orange" but without the dystopian future setting or the experimental reformations. So, basically, it's a story about privileged and spoiled brats committing random acts of extreme violence for no reason other than kicks. The Italian cult cinema era brought forward several films like these, and they are all fabulous! Next to "The Three Savages", there's also "Violence for Kicks", "Naked Violence" and " Young, Violent, Dangerous", and "The Children of Violent Rome".

Ovidio, Giacomo and Peppa work in different departments of a large multinational, but after working hours they come together to let off steam in unusual ways. It starts out playful, with causing riots in a football stadium (although there is nevertheless a fatality) and stealing vehicles for joyrides, but their wild nights soon end with brutal murders and rapes. The police are looking for the culprits in all the wrong places, and only the experienced but degraded Inspector Santagà is on their trail.

As righteously pointed out by many other reviewers already, "Three Savages" distinguishes itself through uncompromising and downright brutal violence. The murder of the prostitute and her pimp are merciless, and especially the attack on the wife of a politician is unimaginably shocking and sick. What I also admired about Ernesto Gastaldi and Vittorio Salerno's script is how they still give an interesting and believable background to the three delinquents. Peppe is going crazy at home because of all the family members living in the house, Giacomo is on the run from arguing neighbors & a strict landlady, and Ovidio is frustrated that his wife has a much more successful career than he does. Great movie, a must for Italian cult hunters!

... and it doesn't hang around. Very shortly after the beginning of the film the guys start disrupting things, and it just escalates from there.

It's hard to imagine that this *wasn't* influenced by A Clockwork Orange but to some degree this is more plausibly "close to real society".

For computer buffs, there's also some great footage of the IBM 370 model 158 mainframe - Joe Dallesandro plausibly using a card reader to load up the detective's fake "lottery program", and wielding a light pen - 40 years before the launch of the Apple Pencil!

Not all of it works, and Joe really struggles to look normal at times, but once you buy into the idea that the Italian police really *are* that incompetent, it's well done.

Worth a look.