Das Syndikat des Grauens

On a blood and guts level, Fucli's "Contraband" fires up. The squib hits are extreme, giant chunks of flesh are shot out of necks, bad guys die in glorious slomo, and one woman has has face melted for attempting to sell a drug dealer cut coke.

On another level, the film is ponderous, the plot is predictable, and the performances are anemic. Fabio Testi, who was solid in "Revolver", plays a very weak character here and I didn't buy his campaign to wage revenge one little bit.

The action has a muscular quality to it and Fulci makes the most of his access to half a dozen boats. A funeral on the boats is a poetic touch, too. The film is not a bad one, but it misses being great because the script is feeble. You can spot the bad guy a mile off and the dubbing, as usual, is terrible.

The Fabio Frizzi score is memorable but used inappropriately and too often.

One of the best stunt sequences involves an assassinated man rolling down an embankment. There is a worthwhile killing at a racetrack involving a gun shoved a throat.

"Contraband" is a fast-forward job for viewers, and on that level, it offers some satisfaction.

Nasty French drug dealer, the Marsigliese (Marcel Bozzuffi), is trying to take control of the crime scene in Naples; unable to convince the Neapolitan 'capo's (Mafia crime bosses) to deal in his narcotics (they prefer to smuggle harmless cigarettes instead), he has them bumped off one by one.

Eventually, only family guy smuggler Luca Di Angelo (Fabio Testi) stands between the Marsigliese and his total domination of the Naples underworld. But Luca's wife is kidnapped by the megalomaniacal mobster, and it looks as though all is lost—until help arrives in the form of several retired Mafia leaders who do not wish to see the Marsigliese succeed.

Taking a break from the horror scene for which he is better known, director Lucio Fulci has a go at a different genre, but still manages to gross out the audience with the high level of violence and gore he delivers. In order to make up for what is a pretty routine tale, he throws in loads of bloody bullet hits, mutilation, a smidgen of rape, and other assorted graphic nastiness. And when he's not trying to turn your stomach with blowtorches to the face, bullets through the throat or shotgun blasts to the abdomen, he chucks in some gratuitous nudity for good measure.

It is this sleaziness that makes Contraband watchable despite its mundane story, and even more enjoyable than quite a few of his horror films. 6.5 out of 10 (rounded up to 7 for IMDb).

Fulci's movies tend to be a mixed: they're either terribly good or terribly bad. This one is terribly good. The plot is simple: Testi plays Luca, a cigarette smuggler who is reluctant to go into business with a powerful gangster. When Luca refuses, the gangster gets mad, and makes Luca's life a Hell, namely by killing his friends and abducting his wife.

Like all Fulci movies, this one is pretty slow going some of the time, but wait til the gang war gets started!!! We got heads blowing off, faces burned off, throats and stomachs blown out, and all the nudity you could ever ask for. Even has a happy ending (or what passes for a happy ending in these films). Fans of the crime genre will not be disappointed.

CONTRABAND (Lucio Fulci - Italy 1980).

It's great to see all the familiar faces from the heydays of European bad cinema together again. Bad film-making without the slightest wit or irony. Those were the days... They all lined up for this very sleazy and sadistic "Poliziottesco" by Lucio Fulci, his only foray into the crime genre, and I'm glad it was the only one he made. Fabio Testi is the focal point as Luca Di Angelo, an idealistic family man and cigarette smuggler in this tale of mob warfare in economically depressed Naples. When a rival gang massacres his brother and abducts his wife, Luca goes berserk and triggers an all-out mob war, with virtually every Don in town getting involved.

Testi is OK in the lead and Marcel Bozzufi (THE FRENCH CONNECTION) makes quite an impact as "The Margliese", a Frenchman who tries to muscle his way into the Neapolitan crime world. He really is the most sadistic and ruthless crime figure you'll ever see. I figure this film would satisfy most Fulci fans. Torture, rape, bare flesh, endless shoot-outs and plenty of sleaze and violence make this slightly entertaining. I could sit through this because there's quite a lot of action and it's never really dull, but otherwise beware. This film has some of the most atrocious English dubbing I know , real bad, only made worse by the already howlingly awful dialog and some wooden acting. What about that club scene? I think they took some dialog from a totally different movie there (Blue Underground's release didn't include an Italian audiotrack), it didn't make sense whatsoever. Even by grade-Z poliziotteschi standards, this was pretty mystifying.

The film also features a soundtrack with some Italian pseudo-rock 1980 style. I can't really describe it, but it was annoying and totally inappropriate for the scenes. Fulci does show some of his earlier cinematic flair in some (especially interior) scenes, but then ruins it all in the next with bad lighting and bad editing, like showing somebody's head blown off, before the actual shot is being fired. In an earlier comment someone remarked the gore was very realistic. Well, what can I say? If you think blood looks like strawberry juice, I guess it does.

Camera Obscura --- 4/10

(aka: CONTRABAND)

Normally I don't comment on non-horror or mondo films but since Fulci directed it, and since there's enough gore splatter in here to finance a small horror film, I'm gonna put my two cents in.

Fabio Testi plays a Neapolitan cigarette smuggler who's territory is being muscled in on by the Margliese (Marcel Bozzuffi) who wants a clear way to smuggle heroin into Italy using Naples as an entry point.

One by one, Testi's comrades are being killed off in many different gruesome ways, including the backs of heads being blown off, a rotting cadaver thrown through a window, blood bags exploding in stomachs with intestines flying out, and a pretty female drug courier getting half her face burned off by one of the Margilese's henchman.

This has to be one of the goriest crime thrillers I have seen so far. Fulci pulls no stops here and the bad guys are truly gonna get what they deserve. The ending shootout in the street between the Margilese's men and the retired Camorra bosses is classic Fulci.

The Blue Underground DVD uses an excellent widescreen print that is only marred in a couple of places by bad splicing. The only extras that come with it are a couple of bios (Fulci and Testi) and an American trailer.

If you want to see violent crime thriller that doesn't pull any stops like the American ones do, then go see this one!

Recommended! 7 out of 10