Un citoyen se rebelle

Here's one of my absolute favourites of the Eurocrime era that turns just about everything about genre on its head. There's no indestructible heroes here. No massive gun battles either. There's barely even a romantic subplot, unless you count the bromance between Nero and Prete. Hell, everyone even stops to reload their guns - that's how realistic this one is!

Castellari begins by showing us three hoods breaking in to an apartment and wrecking it, even pissing on a framed newspaper article from the second World War regarding the liberation of Italy. We then get a credits sequence that, set to an awesome prog soundtrack, details the crime wave in Genoa. Finally, we get to the actual plot, starting off with mild mannered Franco Nero going to the Post Office to cash out his earnings.

Franco's world is shattered when three violent hoods rob the Post Office, rough up a few folk (including a priest), then take Franco hostage for standing up for himself. It's during the car chase that follows that we meet the robbers for real. There's huge, violent Romano Puppo, small, violent Massimo Vanni, and some other guy (also violent). They beat Franco senseless and leave him in the car for the police to find while they switch cars and speed off.

Franco finds that the police aren't going to be much help and decides to take the law into his own hands, much to the annoyance of police detective Renzo Palmer, and even more to the annoyance of his girlfriend Barbara Bach. It's around this time that we realise it was Franco Nero's apartment was the one that was trashed at the start of this film, and that the newspaper article was a kept by Franco as a memory of his father, who was executed by the Nazis. It's therefore understandable that Franco rises up against the criminals and tries to track them down. The problem that soon becomes evident is that he's really, really bad at it!

So instead of having a kick ass killing machine mowing down half of Genoa's criminals, we have Franco Nero getting a drubbing from some petty gangsters and generally getting caught out stalking other criminals. That is until he gets the idea to start blackmailing armed robber Giancarlo Prete. Using Giancarlo, he starts edging closer to the post office robbers, but in doing so Franco uncovers corruption and starts feeling guilty about blackmailing Prete, until things come to a head at the end.

I'm not sure why people have issues with Nero's performance here, because he does fine as the stubborn citizen who risks losing everything for revenge. His watery eyed look of shock as he underestimates the violent capacity of his enemies is worth the wait, as is the performance of Prete as a petty criminal who wants out of the life he's stuck in. Barbara Back hasn't got much to do mind you, but Romano Puppo and Massimo Vanni comes across as nasty, over confident hoods who might be violent, but are still out-smarted by Nero. Here's a special paragraph dedicated to the soundtrack:

Special paragraph dedicated to the soundtrack: There are basically two pieces of music that make up the soundtrack, with many different variations. One is 'Goodbye My Friend', a proggy rock tune, and the other is 'Driving All Around', a bongo driven funk track sung by a man who sounds drunk. Both work really well in all their variations, and although we get hints of Driving All Around, the song is introduced proper when Franco gains his first true lead. "Goodbye My Friend" is also used to great effect when Franco thinks the cops are going to bust his enemies, with the music crashing to a halt to allow Franco to scream in frustration.

Also adding to the package as a whole, as usual, is Enzo's hyperactive camerawork and inventive editing that makes a plot that should bore much more interesting and appealing. So there we go. One of the best. Most of the cast would return again and again in Enzo's work. Puppo, Vanni and Palmer would return for Enzo's next Eurocrime project: The Big Racket!

"Street Law" (1974) is one of Italian genre director Enzo G. Castellari's many crime thrillers. Italian superstar Franco Nero plays an ordinary citizen who is temporarily taken hostage and beaten by a group of sadistic bank robbers. He tells his story to the police who blow him off after accusing him of being reckless in fighting back with such dangerous criminals. Good old Nero decides to take the law into his own hands and stage a war with the thugs, against the wishes of his girlfriend (Barbara "Mrs. Ringo Starr" Bach) Director Castellari is credited as being one of the pioneers of the crime/police thriller genre in Italy. He proves to be ingenious in his simple mastery of action sequence staging. His use of Peckinpah-style slow mo is also damn exciting. The editing and cinematography are also very striking! Another plus is the catchy rock score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis that adds real punch to the great opening credit sequence.

"Street Law" isn't exactly a stand-out or a distinctive piece of cinema in the endless array of action movies from around the world, but Castellari sure as hell is!

The best part of this film is definitely the scene where a filthy and beaten-up Franco Nero has to outrun a '66 Mustang in a junkyard, complete with a really good long lens slow motion shot of Nero running toward the camera with a car right behind him.

The plot details Nero's quest to bring three bank robbers (Romano Puppo, Nazzareno Zamperla, and Massimo Vanni) who took him hostage and beat him up to justice. To do this, he blackmails a local street thug (Giancarlo Prete in a good role) and forces him to show him around the underworld and eventually find them to exact vigilante justice on them. What sets this mundane tale apart are the frequent changes-of-alliance and doublecrosses, as the action sequences are relatively weak (considering it's a Castellari movie). STREET LAW is not really that violent either when compared with most other Italian crime films. (Compare Romano Puppo's final scene here with a similar scene in Lucio Fulci's CONTRABAND.)

Guido and Maurizio De Angelis's score is certainly similar to their work for the many Bud Spencer / Terence Hill films (though not under their usual Oliver Onions pseudonym), but to me sounds a lot better. While the songs are weird and use seemingly every possible instrument and sound in the book, the "Good Bye My Friend" song is a great song even though the lyrics in most of it make no sense. The same can be said of "Driving All Around". Nero once again plays the same character he plays in every movie, but his character is not totally developed (though that may have been hurt severely by the confusing re-editing of the US version that I saw) and his relationship with his girlfriend Barbara Bach is barely touched on. While the plot is simple, it often becomes uninteresting, and certainly doesn't have the more epic feeling of Castellari/Nero's previous film High Crime. Castellari's next film (the goofy but surreal CRY ONION) tried to capitalize off this one, with Nero once again up against the same trio of thugs along with another over-the-top De Angelis score, though any similarity with this film ends there.

Watch for an amusing cameo by charismatic American actor Mickey Knox (who made a career as a dubbing voice in many Italian movies and Japanese Anime cartoons) as a gangster who runs a gaming parlor.

Not a great film, but colorful and different enough to make it entertaining to most casual viewers.

After being taken as a hostage and beaten by three vicious bank robbers, an "average guy" (Franco Nero) becomes outraged by the refusal of the police to take drastic action and decides to go on a personal war against the underworld. The script of this slick-looking, violent tale is standard crime-movie stuff, but director Castellari manages to put in some stylish shots and to stage a gripping final shootout. It's almost as if you're watching a spaghetti crime thriller. (**)

A bit different to the usual vigilante films, half expected something like Death Wish, the Exterminator or The Big Racket (Which are all great films by the way) and instead it's something a bit more realistic and well thought out. Maybe the action sequences should have been more evenly spread through the film though. What makes it different to the other films is the main character doesn't wipe out hundreds of punks, it is more a story of his calculated revenge and builds it's story up more steadily. Franco Nero plays the most haphazard, cack-handed vigilante ever but is great in the role, certainly more expressive than Robert Ginty in the Exterminator. Not that that's difficult mind. His character is obsessed with revenge and it is well portrayed. It is easy to sympathise with his character and it is engrossing watching him get his revenge. Nero does a lot of his own stunts too including some great stuff with him getting chased and knocked down by a Ford Mustang in slo mo. How he didn't get killed or crippled is incredible.

Talking of cars poor Franco has to make do with an Austin Allegro through most of the film.

Anyway to summarise a good solid well acted film, quite violent, great music score, very well staged action sequences and satisfying climax.

Very much worth a watch.