Rapt à l'italienne

The actual title of this great film is Mordi e Fuggi which is roughly translated as 'Hit and Run'. The American title of 'Dirty Weekend' and the film poster of a man petting his mistress's bottom misrepresents this film as a sex comedy but it's more of a drama and a tragedy with a bit of comedy thrown in, which is what real life is.

This serious and beautifully crafted work is not a bog standard poliziotteschi as it deals with profound themes of desire for social change, revolution and the absurdity of political violence that preoccupied people in Italy and elsewhere in the 1970s (It's worth noting that back then nobody was aware of Gladio false flag attacks).

I recently watched a poor-quality version on YouTube as it had the original Italian soundtrack but it was worth it. Nearly all the reviews here relate to the English dub as seen on the TCM channel but if you can watch the Italian version with subtitles do so, as one can't really appreciate Dino Risi's great craftsmanship in the English version. Ideally it could be restored and made available with good subtitles.

Those of us who have followed Frederico Fellini and leading man Marcello Mastroianni in many of those classics of World cinema, including 8 and a half, will be rather surprised and maybe shocked to see him starring in this scattergun crime thriller.

Directed without much flair and featuring many quite loosely shot car chases and lively crime-sprees and shoot-outs, the cast to many of us Brits will be spearheaded by the relentless macho dominance of Oliver Reed. He's the brutal head kidnapper, jumping at the opportunity of the chance kidnapping of business head Mastroianni, who really only wants to rush off with his mistress for a weekend of hanky-panky (hence the title.)

The version on TCM (TV) was dubbed - and not too badly at that. I'm sure Reed's voice is as was though but with an 'accent' - how accurate it is and how insulting it would be to Europeans, I do not know. I'm presuming that they had to dub him into Italian for its home release.

The film skips along briskly, featuring many of the things we associate with Italy, largely through aforementioned films by Fellini and the like. Namely, scavenging paparazzi in pursuit of story and scandal, jostling with the Police on the chase. The price of capitalism and trappings of wealth all questioned through the dialogue. The whole feel seems to be par of the course of its era for many adult crime thrillers, both from Hollywood and the UK.

It's the first time I'd ever encountered the film, let alone on TV. The number of reviews and votes here on IMDb shows it's quite rare and it's unlikely I'll get to see it again. Not that I'd particularly want to but am kind of glad I did.

I really liked this movie when I first saw it in the 70's when I was a teenager. I kept thinking about it all the years, wanting to see it again. Revised in 2022, I can say that I like it just as much now that I have a mature mind. It's an exceptional film, with a special subject, directed and interpreted in a masterful way. Especially Oliver Reed and Marcello Mastroianni achieve two admirable performances. The other actors are also big, Carole André, Lionel Stander, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Bruno Cirino. It's not a very funny comedy at all as naxash writes, but a pure drama. And Dino Risi is a great director. Absolutely to be seen and watched again. The film has a somewhat similar theme to "The Sugarland Express" with Goldie Hawn.

While not as explosive as the other gutsier Oliver Reed-starring Poliziotteschi classic 'Revolver', the subtleties of the politically nuanced screenplay, and the preternatural charisma of Marcello Mastroianni make maestro Dino Risi's darkly sardonic, TV-Media satirizing road movie 'Dirty Weekend' a far more intellectually stimulating work. Wherein the gregarious bourgeois businessman Mastroianni takes his delectably nubile girlfriend away for a wicked weekend of some riotously unbound rumpy pumpy, when their adulterous tryst is crudely interrupted by a majestically brooding Ollie Reed, and his two querulous partners in crime, and the exciting, frequently comedic Euro-crime thriller shifts into an exhilaratingly higher gear, as the satisfyingly cerebral film becomes a rather more playful Poliziotteschi, whereupon the kidnapping rapidly escalates into a rumbustious, ceaselessly entertaining media-fuelled circus! 'Dirty Weekend' is a surprisingly contemplative thriller, considerably less reliant on cliché than many of its more bellicose brethren, thereby allowing for some genuine sympathy to develop for the diverse character's increasingly dire predicament, a dynamic pointedly absent in much genre cinema, and maestro Carlo Rustichelli's sprightly score is another highlight!

In this film, Marcello Mastroianni plays a rich guy who wants to spend a well "Dirty Weekend" with his young girlfriend. He gets kidnapped by a gang of communists (led by a guy with a heavy German accent) who just robbed a bank. What's gonna happen now? Is his family gonna give the communists (called "terrorists" by the media) the ransom? Is the rich guy gonna play hero and succeed? "Dirty Weekend" is a very funny comedy with an attitude, a comedy that has something to say about the role the media play, about the state and last but not least about capitalism. Check it out!