L'exécuteur

Back in the 70s everything was possible; - just ask Sir Roger Moore! Shooting a down & dirty Italian mafia/gangster exploitation thriller in between two major James Bond productions? Sure, why not! In "Street People", the über-British Moore supposedly plays a half-Sicilian counsellor based in San Francisco. If you can believe that, the rest of the overly silly, far-fetched and pointlessly convoluted plot shouldn't be too difficult to accept, neither. The opening sequences are impressive, for certain. In the San Franciscan harbor, a massive Jesus' cross arrives in a container from Sicily. It's a gift to the local church, by the former mafia don Salvatore Francesco, but it turns out the hollowed cross was stuffed with heroin and three innocent harbor workers were killed during unloading. Furious over the accusation that the supposedly unaware Salvatore abuses the church to smuggle drugs into America, he assigns his nephew Ulisse to investigate who organized the drug-transport. Ulisse, at his turn, calls in the help of his buddy Charlie, who's a totally reckless and unscrupulous race car driver and thrill seeker. During their search, many double-crossings and nasty family secrets come to the surface, though.

The script of "Street People" (aka "The Man from the Organization" and about half a dozen other alternate titles) seriously lacks structure and coherence, but it also contains many clever little ideas and a handful of near-genius action sequences. I agree with what most reviewers mentioned already, namely that Stacy Keach steals the show as the pleasantly deranged Charlie. The "test drive" scene is unforgettable and there's another very spectacular and insane chase sequence with colossal trucks towards the climax. During this chase, you can clearly spot that the stunt drivers don't nearly resemble Roger Moore and Stacy Keach, but who cares? The flashback footage to Sicily in the 1930s is so exaggeratedly melodramatic, due to the slow-motion filming and the harrowing music, that it almost becomes hilarious!

This film is not dissimilar to many cop-buddy films, except that the two central characters trying to track down the contraband are working for the mob. And, to-be-fair, it is far better than a hell of lot of cop-buddy films I have seen. It is let down in places though, not least the awful flashback scenes which are far too sappy.

Disjointed gangster film that specializes in pointless "destruction of property" scenes. Roger Moore is badly miscast; he clearly looks uncomfortable to be in an Italian crime movie, and he shows none of his usual flair. Don't go out of your way to see this one. (*1/2)

Roger Moore and Stacey Keach star in this Italian-American co-production, and try to be the Martin and Lewis of 70's crime exploitation cinema. The rigor mortis of Roger Moore was never more noticeable as it is here, playing the straight man next to the Keach's easygoing rouge. It's a rather stale exploitation film, with the typical one liners, car chases, shoot outs, and gratuitously bad dubbing of the Italian actors. The film does have one great highlight when Keach takes a gangster's car for a test drive, and in hair-raising fashion, wrecks it through the streets of San Francisco. Unfortunately, it all doesn't work- the comedy isn't funny enough, neither Keach or Moore are particularly convincing (especially Moore, who is as dry as a desert), the violence and stuntwork is middling, the story isn't very engaging, and the ending is painfully banal. There may be just enough `so bad it's good' work that 70's exploitation fans may be entertained, but no one would call it great.

Just to give an idea what you're in for- in the finale, Keach (as Charlie) hides some dope in cans of powdered milk, stashed in the trunk of his car. Moore, to keep him out of trouble, pushes the car over a cliff and says, `It was only powdered milk, wasn't it Charlie? And, what's the use of crying over powdered milk?' You may now groan if you aren't already.

I was led to believe from reviews that this was some sort of buddy comedy with Roger Moore and Stacey Keach and although the film does have its lighter moments (mainly down to Keach) it is still a violent Eurocrime film that doesn't skimp on the car chases, punch-ups, or smoking.

You see Moore is a lawyer for his Uncle, who is a mobster trying to go straight. The Uncle has recently imported a huge wooden cross from a chapel in Sicily as a gift to his estranged priest friend Ettor Manni, but when three Sicilians turn up, kidnap the delivery men, then steal a shipment of heroin concealed in the cross, all hell breaks loose. Only we the audience are clued in that there's a black-gloved killer (possibly on loan from a giallo) who kills the delivery men with a silencer. Somebody doesn't want witnesses!

Moore seems to be some sort of mediator for all the mob bosses too, so he's given the task of recovering the heroin, tracking down the three gangsters, and finding out who set up his Uncle. To do that he enlists Stacey "You Never Forget the Taste of Human Flesh!" Keach, a race car driver, and you better believe that's coming in handy later in the film. Moore travels to Sicily while Keach hits the streets looking for the heroin, where he discovers that it's not being sold - so where is it?

I suppose you could complain that the film is all over the place tone-wise, with the drug dealing granny and Keach merrily destroying a car by driving it around San Francisco on one side and the gangland executions on the other side, but I liked it. You've got a bit of a mystery going on and James Bond fighting Romano Puppo, who doesn't want that?

We also get a car chase thrown in where two trucks get involved and I couldn't tell if they belonged to the bad guys or Roger Moore just killed them because they got in his way. All the Eurocrime elements are here, so I guess whether you enjoy or not depends on how you get on with Roger Moore and Stacey Keach.