Un flic rebelle

Ah, the "Poliziotesschi". The rough & tough cop action/thrillers movies from Italy. There's not an exploitation subgenre that I love more, except maybe the Giallo. But for both the Giallo and the Poliziotesschi, the end of the 70s and start of the 80s marked the end of their glorious heydays. "The Rebel", which is the I-don't-know-how-many-th collaboration between experts Stelvio Massi (director) and Maurizio Merli (lead actor), came out when the subgenre was already a lot less popular.

Nonetheless it remains an entertaining and adrenalin-packed action movie, and the script attempts to bring a few minor innovations here and there. For instance, Merli's character isn't an unorthodox cop anymore. I reckon all the unorthodox coppers from the 70s got fired eventually, and now they are private detectives or - like in this case -bodyguards. Nick Rossi (Merli) gets begged by his friend Tony to come work with him in his personal security company, because during his last two assignments his clients were killed. Even with Rossi on board, the next client - and also Tony - gets killed by a criminal organization that apparently assassinates prominent foreign visitors just for funsies. Frustrated that he was unable to prevent the attack and swearing revenge for his buddy, Rossi infiltrates into the organization to take them out from bottom to top.

Well, yes, you've seen this all before, but it's still worth seeking out if you're a fan of Italian exploitation cinema. Merli remains as dedicated to his role as if it was his very first Poliziotesschi, there are bloody shootouts and violent stunt work aplenty, impressive filming locations in Venice and Berlin, and a solid sub plot revolving around the unfolding love between Rossi and Vivien; - the beautiful female minion in the organization. It's a terrible shame that our hero must always slap - and hard, I may add - women in the face in these Poliziotesschi flicks, but I reckon it must have been a chauvinist-macho fetish back in the 70s, or something.

Lovely soundtrack by the always reliable Stelvio Cipriani, too.

How much mileage can you get out of a genre involving maverick cops who play by their own rules? Even though the genre is on the wane, Stelvio Massi pulls another great film out of the bag.

Maurizio Merli is indeed a maverick cop who plays by his own rules, but he's also retired at the start of this film until old partner Francisco Rabal shows up at his door and asks for his help. Rabal has branched out as a bodyguard but isn't doing too well. His last two clients were murdered and Rabal reckons he's got one more chance before he gets the boot. Merli reluctantly agrees to help, perhaps because of the offer of a free trip to Venice

Merli tries his best, but this German businessman still ends up with a bullet in the back of his head. Annoyed at this, Merli bursts through an entire window all guns blazing and takes down what seems to be a hundred or so bad guys, but not before Rabal gets a cap popped in his ass. One dead ex-partner later, Merli swears revenge. He's so punch-happy in this film I'm surprised he didn't give Rabal's corpse a final sock on the jaw before he left the hospital, although he does assault a seriously injured bad guy so it's all good anyway.

I was just letting the awesomeness flow over me by this point so I'm sketchy on the details, but somehow Merli manages to pass himself off as the injured bad guy and heads to Berlin to get revenge for Rabal, get it on with a blonde chick, but will he actually get revenge for Rabal (certainly) and still save the life of the blonde chick (optional)?

Massi throws in all the goodness you need from this kind of stuff: Merli being cunning and passing various tests for the bad guys (mad driving skills, killing folk) while having a more complicated relationship than usual with the blonde chick. She's part of the gang but she also loves Merli, who kind of loves her back but then likes punching people in the face more, but then again he slapped her about a bit and she tried to have him killed, so who knows what's going on there. You've got your shoot-outs, foot chases, people falling off things, and Merli being beaten up by Bobby Rhodes, who looks about ten feet tall.

How many more of these films did Merli make? I'll have to find out what he did after the genre went down the tubes.

"Poliziotti solitudine e rabbia" or "Ein Mann namens Venedig" (A Man called Venice), as it was called in Germany, is an Italian-German crime drama co-production from 1979, filmed mainly in the snowy winter of bleak West-Berlin. Italian cop Nick, played by gangster movie veteran Maurizio Merli, goes to Berlin to find the head of an International European blackmailing gang who has murdered several people. He investigates undercover as a contract killer for the gangsters, but of course becomes immediately the target of his enemies and has to fight hard to save his life...

The plot is not really new, but it really work well here. The pacing is good, there are some thrilling moments as well as good car chases, fighting and shooting scenes, and the film shows a lot of the isolated situation and dark atmosphere of Iron Wall Berlin of the seventies.

The cast is fine, too, with Merli being a very good Franco Nero lookalike, combining the sarcastic humor of Terence Hill with the hard avenging edge of Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery. German actors Jutta Speidel and Arthur Brauss have some supporting roles. There's a nice and groovy disco synthesizer jazz funk score, and the director continued doing all kinds of Italian b-movies until his death in March, 2004. A well-made and entertaining "spaghetti mafia movie"!

By the 1980s the halcyon days of the blood-thirsty Italian poliziotteschi was on the wane, if not, it was pretty close to extinction; so it comes as a pleasant surprise to discover that the veteran Euro-crime master and all-round exploitation don, Stelvio Massi had one more righteous movie up his sleeve. This successful German-Italian Co-production is an unreconstructed heft of compulsive poliziotteschi action, that makes excellent use of its oppressive Berlin backdrop and frequently delivers all the exhilarating action one expects from the uniquely explosive cinematic admixture of, Stelvio Massi & Maurizio Merli!

'Poliziotti solitudine e rabbia' finds everyone's favourite zero tolerance moustache of vengeance, Maurizio Merli on ferociously fleet-fisted form as undercover cop, Nicola, unleashing his inimitable methods of unrepentantly brutalist policing against the nefarious activities of a shadowy Mafioso blackmailing outfit operating in West Berlin. Maestro, Stelvio Massi's dynamic poliziottesco, 'The Rebel' is highly recommended, this exciting crime thriller has a fabulous, Stelvio Cipriani soundtrack, and also includes the triumphantly testicular display of next-level machismo, whereby daredevil cop, Nicola, determinedly slo-mo's himself through a window in order to waste some frantically absconding gunsel, arguably being one of the more dynamic examples of Italian icon, Maurizio Merli's quintessentially strident screen persona!

a very well made film, with a good cast and excellent photography, sadly falls short of the mark.

it seems that after about 1977, all Italian cop movies went through a change; less random scenes of violence and action, more plot and character development:

The Rebel (title of the Japanese video relese) concerns retired cop Nick Rossi (Maurizio Merli) who lets a friend talk him into becoming a body gaurd. Rossi agrees, then the man the are hired to protect gets shot in a Venetian glass shop. a fairly cool shoot out takes place, including an awesome scene where Merli jumps through a stained-glass window in slow motion, but the fim really drags on from here. it's not a bad film, but not what fans of the genre expect.

worth a watch for Merli/Italian crime complitists, but others shouldn' bother. not like you'd be able to find a copy anyway:)