La redada

This rather strange film is an attempt to combine an Italian giallo thriller and an Italian police action flick. This had been done a few times before--Massimo Dallamano's "What Have They Done to Your Daughters", Sergio Martino's "Suspected Death of a Minor", and Alberto DeMartino's "Blazing Magnums"--but the difference is that instead of being Italian movie, this was a British-Spanish co-production with a hack director (J.A. de la Loma), who was considerably less talented than Martino, Dallamano, or even DeMartino. So,needless to say, he doesn't pull this off very successfully.

The movie has two parallel threads. One has a reporter (Simon Andreu) and his shutterbug bride-to-be (Linda Hayden) witnessing the murder of the woman. They locate the woman's twin sister (Silvia Solar),but she is strangely unwilling to cooperate. Meanwhile, he has several run-ins with a police captain who is investigating the crime from another angle and who loses his favorite informer, a low-life named "Flipper", with whom he has an unusually affectionate relationship.Of course, there is a huge conspiracy involved in ALL of this headed by a powerful man called "the Count" (Eduardo Fajaro). Befitting the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach of the whole movie, this ring is not only involved in drug trafficking, as in half the European crime thrillers, but also in white slavery (teenage white slavery, naturally)like the other half. I eventually lost track of the convoluted plot.

The Spanish actors Simon Andreu and Eduardo Fajaro acquit themselves pretty well, but of course, they were both veterans of a lot of Italian films in these two genres. British actress Linda Hayden is much more out of her element and has little to do but look pretty, get kidnapped,and CONSTANTLY take pictures. Hayden was one of the most criminally underrated and generally wasted British actresses of her day. Her first film "Baby Love" was an erotic (especially for its time) psycho thriller that will probably never get released on DVD because she was only 15 or 16 when she made it. Her biggest starring role was in an even steamier psycho thriller "Expose", which was banned in its native Britain and hardly released outside of it. She was also in a lot of British sex comedies like the "Confessions of" series. But her most well-known role was "Angel Blake" the priest-seducing young temptress in the horror film "The Blood on Satan's Claw". Movies like this simply weren't her forte though. But then nobody really comes out of this one too well.

In the city of Barcelona a journalist, Miguel, who works for a newspaper titled NEUVO DIARIO, witnesses that an Algerian man chases and kills a blonde woman with an Arabic-lettered knife. And then Miguel and his fiancee, Linda, who is an audacious free-lance photographer with her favourite Nikkormat camera, begin to privately investigate the case, and follow an Inspector in charge of the case and his men from JEFATURA SUPERIOR DE POLICIA (police headquarters) to some place in the city. But a man, who is in the disguise of a priest, shoots the Algerian killer in a construction site near there... This Spanish-U.K. co-produced film unexpectedly disappoints me precisely because it is not an Italian-Giallo-like film at all. Indeed this one is nothing but a not-only-cheap-but-also-not-suspenseful-at-all B-action-film of a-comedic-couple-meets-childish-gang-strife-with-illegally-young-female-pro stitution which has no detectiveness; it has no Giallish elements like cinema-graphically recollecting and artistically gore scenes, and the killer in the film have no masks and no gloves and their identities are specifically and almost exhibitionistically descriptive. Instead of the Giallish elements, this film has cheap three-minute car chase scene and cheaper shooting scenes. And to make matters worse, although Stelvio Cipriani's music per se is not particularly bad, the very film does not use the music adequately and therefore it has so many strangely unpolished scenes without any kind of music. In addition, although this seems to be one of the films in which lovely Linda Hayden at her best, her character named Linda, who is a badly comedienne-like photographer, is definitely inadequate for the very film and therefore spoils it to a certain degree.

Here's another film that falls weak, because it doesn't set out to accomplish the things it should, and doesn't follow through. But look beyond that where we've got a score of underage lasses, on display, caught up in a teenage prostitution ring, being run by higher guns, being that of the Italian mafia, where one most uptight, and determined, if irritating Inspector speaking in dubbed angry tones (his clean cut moustache hardly moves) is intent to see them fall. Also on the case is a driven journalist (England's Linda Hayden) and photographer, determined to expose this sea of corruption, that reaches some high figures in high places. We have some nude dancing and boobies too, from some young strippers/pro's getting it on with some dirty men. The raid scene with an old codger in a red and white checkered bathrobe caught with a teen pro, standing, drugged, in a hallway, watching the proceedings, that speech given by the inspector could of been saved. Prior to this, one of his colleges loses it some, when in one of the rooms an older pro in the raw, tries to come on to him, and is slapped for her troubles. It's cheeky end, later, the same girl making another offer, I familiarized with the one to Teenage Prostitution Racket, also Italia. A poor structure of story and film, this Italian effort could of been much better, but it rather, like many others, goes for the sleaze instead, killing another movie as you could say. Ha ha. Get it.

BARCELONA KILL is a rare Spanish/British co-production of a thriller about a couple getting involved with a police investigation into local gangsters. Invariably they soon find themselves targets as murder and mayhem spread through the city. This low budget quickie has a fair amount of action and a Stelvio Cipriani score to distinguish it, but it does feel a bit plodding and unfocused at times. The most fun element is Linda Hayden, somewhat wasted in a 'girlfriend' role.

an average crime drama that starts out with a somewhat intersting plot, but stretches it so far it becomes ridiculous. there are some good ideas in the story, but nothing is really made of them.

Spanish character actor Eduardo Fajardo (Django) is wasted on a phoned-in performance, and Stelvio Cipriani delivers a mediocre score.

there is however a 15 minute stretch of solid booty kicking action starting off with a guy getting his head repeatedly bashed into the walls of his apartment, then thrown down the stairs, followed by an extended "Bullit-esque" car chase.

Barcelona Kill is overall pretty pedestrian...not help by the incredibly weak ending. recommended only to the most forgiving fans of Euro action who are running out of stuff to watch.