Liberi armati pericolosi

In the days before those innocent acts of trolling each other on Facebook and revenge porning each other, the youth of yesterday were content simply to drive around Milan acting like jerks, robbing banks, and shooting innocent people in the face. This is their story.

Three young guys - Blondie, Hunky and the annoying Joe, plan to rob a petrol station in Milan, but they don't know that Hunky's girlfriend has gone to the police and tipped them off. She does make the mistake of telling cop Tomas Milian that they have toy guns though, toys that turn out to be real as several cops and a petrol station owner are gunned down. Now Blondie and the rest are on the run, but instead of keeping their heads low they hit banks, recruit others to rob supermarket, then kill said others with hot lead.

Milian can't figure out why some rich boys would go on such a crime spree, but at least he takes time out to blame the parents for their lack of attention to their kids. To be honest that's the only time he shows any emotion here as Milian doesn't have much to do besides try and track down the trio as they kill everyone they meet, and get Hunky's girlfriend caught up in it too. Milian really just looks concerned, smokes, and becomes increasingly dishevelled.

We spend a lot more time with the youngsters instead. Hunky never kills anyone, but goes along with the crime spree and only seems to enjoy things when he's outrunning the police in a car chase. Blondie however is the leader, and although he doesn't show much emotion, he's might have a thing for Hunky (Hunky's girlfriend spots it during the car chase too, plus he doesn't get involved in a gang bang earlier in the film, which someone ruins by farting!). That leaves Joe, the weak link in this film as his character is so annoying. He's the hyperactive 'joker' of the pack, but his jokes are only funny to himself and he laughs at them in a shrill moronic bray (at least in the Italian language version). The only time he calms down is when one of Blondie's mates refers to him as being the village idiot, which results in said mate being machine-gunned in the face.

I'm sure writer Fernando Di Leo is trying to say something here, but I didn't catch it. This is a nihilistic cavalcade of violence, all set to Tomas Milian's jaw clenching. That cheesy song at the start was awful though - maybe that's what made them go nuts?

Liberi armati pericolosi (1976) or Young, Violent, and Desperate (United States title) turns out to be interesting enough and with plenty of vivid action , suspense and violence . In this violent thriller , three youth men (Stefano Patrizi , Benjamin , Max Delys) embark a criminal spree by killing here and there , while engaging in bank robbery , crossfire , and thrilling car chases . They're pursued by a tough , hard-nosed commissioner (Tomas Milian) who will stop at nothing to detain them , however , failing in his purports , while the whole police force mobilizes throughout highways by means of roadblocks to track down the nasty delinquents carrying out a relentless manhunt. As the punks make a fast stop to pick up a girlfriend (Eleonora Giorgi) and then in high speed towards Switzerland . More blood will be shed and more violence will be executed before this sinister saga ends in an unpredictable final.

A criminal fiction with suspense , intrigue , frantic action , turns , a lot of twisted incidents , at the same time charged with tension and high level staging which the viewer could really enjoy . Formula thriller with plenty of action , crisply edition , tension , intrigue , suspenseful , skin bared and lots of violence in exploitation style . It belongs to Italian Poliziesco sub-genre , including ordinary trappings , being essentially developed in the Seventies , titles like Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (1974), Free Hand For a Tough Cop (1976) , Brothers Till We Die (1978) , From Corleone to Brooklyn (1979) were the most popular and brutal of his thrillers . Compellingly directed by Romolo Guerrieri , after directing his successful Spaghetti Westerns : 10.000 dollars for a massacre , Johnny Yuma , Seven guns for Timothy ; in the late 1970s , Romolo turned to the police thrillers or polizieschi , which rejuvenated his confidence and his popularity , directing this Liberi armati pericolosi (1976) in which some youngsters carrying out upon a terrifying series of bloody crimes . Stars Tomas Milian giving a nice performance as a two-fisted Inspector , but he isn't the typical Italian cop , the Dirty Harryesque police detective acting as a judge , jury and executioner , but a methodical commissario who even gives advices to malefactors' parents . Unknown main and support cast providing decent , tough exaggerated interpretations , exception for some familar faces as the gorgeous Eleonora Giorgi , Stefano Patrizi and brief appearances from Venantino Venatini , Peter Berling , Tom Felleghy , and a young Diego Abatantuono . Resulting in a fascinating Italian exploitation thriller that is interesting enough , though it has several flaws , shortcomings, gaps and failures . It has some characteristic elements from Poliziesco sub-genre , including exploitation , brief nudism in charge of the beautiful young Eleonora Giorgi , grisly violence, murders in cold blood with special mention for the supermarket slaughter , along with the necessary seasonings as the typical car pursuits with crashes and falls.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Romolo Guerrieri , though with no originality , being pretty predictable and extremely violent . Romolo is a good craftsman who has directed all type of genres such as post-nuke Sci-fi as ¨ The last warrior¨, Italian crime or Poliziottesco as "Young, Violent, Dangerous" , ¨City under siege¨ , "Ring of Death" and western as ¨10.000 Dollari per un massacre¨ , Johnny Yuma¨ and ¨Seven guns for Timothy¨. Rating : 6.5/10 . Passable and acceptable , it will appeal to Poliziottesco enthusiasts.

First and foremost, I love it when a movie fulfills the promise of its own title! Far too often this isn't the case, though. With a title like "Young, Violent, Dangerous" director Romolo Guerrieri and writer Fernando Di Leo generate quite high expectations, but they also definitely deliver them to the max! The anti-heroes in the film are young, they behave incredibly violent and they become gradually more and more dangerous! It's also quite remarkable how a relatively small subgenre of exploitation cinema, like euro-crime, brought forward so many different and versatile streams. Within euro-crime, you have the regular Poliziotteschi movies (tough coppers chasing robbers), mafia sagas, gang war movies and vigilante thrillers. There also exists another and much lesser known stream focusing on rich, spoiled and derailed teenagers that go on a murder rampage for no other apparent reason than kicks. "Terror in Rome/Violence for Kicks", starring Antonio Sabato, is an example of this and "Young, Violent, Dangerous" pretty much falls in the same category as well. The film starts with the beautiful Lea nervously sitting at the desk of grumpy police commissioner Tomas Milian. She comes to report that her boyfriend Lucio, together with his friends Blondie (Mario) and Joe, is about to rob a gas station with fake toy guns. The police prepare an ambush, but the the guns turn out to be very real and Blondie and Joe kill four policemen. Instead of showing remorse, they continue to terrorize the streets of Milan. Lucio is reluctant but he cowardly follows Blondie, who's the leader of the trio, and the completely nihilistic madman Joe. They rob banks, only to threw out the money back in the streets, and invade a crowded supermarket where they even massacre a "befriended" gang in cold blood. When Blondie discovers that Lucio's girlfriend Lea betrayed them to the police, they kidnap her and try to drive out of Milan. The DVD-cover proudly announces that contemporary big star Tomas Milian plays the lead role, but actually his role as the embittered commissioner is rather dullish and familiar. He smokes a lot, gives lectures to the fugitive teenagers' parents about how it's their fault and commands his squads to pull up road blocks, road blocks and more road blocks! The crooks stay well ahead of the police, but the intrigues come to the surface. Lea grows increasingly disgusted by her weak boyfriend Lucio, and Blondie takes advantage of this. Di Leo, the genius behind "Milano Calibro 9" and "La Mala Ordina" which are arguably the two greatest Poliziotteschi movies ever made, once more delivers a fast-paced and action-packed screenplay full of unexpected twists, uncompromising violence and deeply unpleasant characters. In other words, genuine and hard-boiled exploitation cinema like they could only make it in Italy during the seventies! Stefano Patrizi is excellent as the cool and stoic anti-hero. Benjamin Lev's character Joe (or Giovanni) is often quite irritating, especially because of his exaggeratedly moronic laughter, but I do like the idea of an utterly relentless lunatic. "Young, Violent, Dangerous" definitely contains a lot more character development than the average euro- crime thriller, but it's not at the expense of the action and excitement. There's a bit of gratuitous (yay!) nudity, principally provided by beautiful lead actress Eleonora Giorgi, and also – of course – a typically cynical and downbeat climax. Most certainly recommended if you like Italian cinema of the '70s; - and who honestly doesn't?

This is an interesting movie. It is a tendency of Italian exploitation movies in general to eschew logical plotting and character development to focus on elaborate cinematic "set pieces". While this usually works with gialli (and some would say cannibal and zombie films)it is often problem in the Italian crime films where the set pieces usually involve shoot-outs and overlong car chases, two areas where the Italians had NO chance of outdoing bigger-budget Hollywood films (although they often did their damnedest). This film is interesting therefore because it DOES have a lot of character development especially among the villains, three privileged youths that become desperate criminals after their clean-cut but increasingly psychotic leader, "Blondie", starts a gun battle during a botched gas station robbery. One of the other youths is a more obviously deranged thrill seeker, while the third youth, the "wheel-man" is decidedly non-violent but loyal to a fault to his two friends.

Rounding out the cast is the girlfriend of the wheel-man (Eleanora Giorgi) who ironically sets the whole thing in motion by reporting the robbery plans to the police (and mistakenly telling them that the trio only have toy guns). The head cop meanwhile is played by Tomas Milan, usually the psychotic heavy in these type of films. Milan lends an iconic presence and is an interesting character in that he is not unsympathetic but is also not the usual borderline-fascist "rebel with a badge" often seen in these movies. Mostly he just proves tragically incompetent at stopping the rampaging youths.

The plot is mostly pretty believable except for a scene where they hook up with another group of youths and shoot-up and rob a grocery store, even killing their own accomplices for no good reason. There's some pretty gratuitous nudity including a pretty sorry excuse to get Giorgi topless (but who's gonna complain about that too much?). The ending is typically cynical, but that's one thing I admire about these films over the violence-glorifying Hollywood versions. See this if you like Italian crime thrillers--or even if you don't.

Silly '50s style juvenile delinquent flick with a '70s Eurotrashy touch. Three teenaged punks kidnap a rich girl and force her to accompany them as they terrorize the streets of Milan. Fun car chases in dumpy Euro-subcompacts and a surprise ending add to the fun.