L'ambitieux

Poliziottesco with Joe Dallesandro and Stefania Casini

After breaking away from underground director Paul Morrissey and the factory of the genius of the century Andy Warhol, Joe Dallesandro, born in 1948, began his own attempts at European genre cinema. Under the direction of the Napolitan Pasquale Squitieri, who was Claudia Cardinale's partner from 1975 to 2001, he plays Aldo, the social climber. As a small-time mafioso in Naples, he works in cigarette smuggling, cheats on his boss (Raymond Pellegrin, he was still the inspector in "Manhunt in the City"), is thrown out of the gang and starts over in Rome. There he gets to know and love a naive supermarket cashier (Stefania Casini, who is also known from "Suspiria" (1977)). As Aldo climbs further up the criminal hierarchy with the help of a motorcycle gang, the private dark side of gangster life also becomes apparent.

The German title is somewhat misleading. Motorcycles do appear, but we don't have a biker film here. Rather, it's about the story of the rise of a small-time crook to become a crime boss. It's compelling, but not told in a particularly original way. The model stuntman Giovanni Cianfriglia can also be seen in a smaller role.

A typical gangster film from Italian mass production with a tailor-made role for the always somewhat boyish and wicked Joe Dallesandro. When engagements in the Roman film industry went downhill in the early 1980s, he returned to the USA. In 1984 and 1987, for example, Joe Dallesandro appeared as a guest star in the cult series "Miami Vice".

Certainly not the best gangster film from Italy, but all in all it's definitely worth seeing!

A tough and sadistically violent Italian crime thriller starring cult actor Joe Dallesandro. He plays a hoodlum who gets beaten to a pulp by gangsters and decides to rise through the ranks, SCARFACE-style, to get revenge. It's a pretty low budget tale that revels in bloody violence meted out to various ne'er-do-wells, but I didn't find it very entertaining along the way; just grim, cheap, and depressing.

Kick-ass gritty tale of the bad guys versus the bad guys here as Joe Dallesandro gets a huge chip on his shoulder with the mob in Naples. He's just a New York hustler peddling tobacco and collecting protection money when out of the blue he gets a kicking and thrown out of the gang for making too much noise.

Joe heads for Rome, rather handily getting a lift from Stefania Casini (and hooking up with her in the process). Joe finds a contact in Rome and gets another job from a sinister gay man to rip off a business deal, steal a briefcase, then bring it back. He also offers to give Joe one up the crapper for extra incentive. Nothing turns out right as the briefcase contains a load of heroin belonging to that gang in Naples, and Joe's been double crossed by that gay fella!

It's shortly after the Mob kill Joe's best friend that Joe decides the gloves are off, and he begins getting revenge by stabbing the guy that double crossed him first (in rather a realistic manner). America might be the land of opportunity, but Italy's the land where those capable of the most violence triumph over all, and Joe's headed for Naples with his new gang of boxers, bare-chested bikers who seem to have fallen into a time warp from an eighties Italian post-apocalypse film, and a sullen sharpshooter.

The first thing you'll notice is that Joe Dallasendro isn't the best actor in the world. He can scowl real good though, and he's playing an arrogant tough nut to boot, so we can forgive for the lack of Gielguid-esque soliloquies. Director Squitieri makes everything seem much more grubby and dusty as usual, which lends a bit more realism to the proceedings, and it's the same with the violence. No fancy stuff here, although there's plenty of the red stuff.

When I think about it, most of the emotion comes from Stefania Casini as the tearful girlfriend who watches her man drift further and further away due to his obsession with revenge, so it's worth watching for that too.

Between this and Order To Kill I'm seeing a distinct change in the fashions, cars and music of this genre, from the brown-suited Dirty Harry rip-offs of two years ago we now have thin white t-shirts, afros, sports cars and hard rock on the soundtrack. Nice.

Made during the then popular poliziotteschi cycle, talented writer/director Pasquale Squitieri's boisterously action-packed crime thriller about the violently vengeful ascent and blood-spattered fall of surly, quick-witted, hot-blooded thug Aldo (Joe Dallesandro), a street smart smuggler whose seemingly limitless capacity for cruelty and delusions of grandeur bloodily orchestrates his gutsy, single-minded attempt to forcibly wrest power from incumbent gangland heavy Don Enrico (Raymond Pellegrin), Aldo's ambitious crime spree swiftly overextends the increasingly desperate reach of grievously gun-happy Aldo and his ever decreasing misfit mob's minor-league talents! While Pasquale's exhilaratingly pacey 'The Climber' is arguably one of the more consistently gripping, explosively eventful examples of 70s Italian crime cinema, this exceptional actioner has only just recently been given the cinematic credibility it so demonstratively deserves.

All the volatile ingredients that deliriously drew so many exploitation fans to Euro-crime's hyper-violent milieu are excitingly displayed in 'The Climber', with its attention-grabbing generosity of ferociously femur-fracturing fights, brutal bullet-fests, gratuitous Gangland goring's, bloodthirsty brawls, murderous displays of mobster mendacity, unrestrained vehicular carnage, and the coldly reptilian menace of Dallesandro effectively endows his hubristic, diabolically handsome, dead-eyed killer Aldo a malign Delon-like detachment that isn't exactly loveable, but his hyperbolic Alpha personality is weirdly magnetic! Much like vintage crime classics 'Scarface' and 'Public Enemy' long before it, Pasquale's doomy, frequently sadistic Euro-crime actioner exudes a similarly dark fascination with Aldo's rampant lust for money and power leading him inexorably to his own ignominious destruction! The exceptionally punchy score by composer Franco Campanino and equally strident film-making from maestro Squitieri has guaranteed that avid poliziotteschi fans, old and new, will readily appreciate the bellicose charms of this beautifully restored HD edition of Pasquale Squitieri's 'The Climber'.

Here it is, the movie that inspired Bryan DePalma's "Scarface," and when you see "L'ambizioso" you will recognize it immediately. The story is the same, changing only the locales. Aldo, played by cult actor Joe Dallesandro in possibly his biggest role, is a New York born, small time criminal, who comes to Naples to make a name for himself. He goes from a small time gig of hawking black market cigarettes, and methodically claws his way to the top of the criminal underworld, after being betrayed by a colleague. The story arc is the same as DePalma's iconic film, which came a decade later. Filled with action, bloody shootouts, and searing drama, this is one epic movie. Little-known director Pasquale Squitieri made a series of these gangster movies, and they are all brilliant. This guy really knew his stuff. He seemed to have an understanding for bad guys as he tells the story always from their point of view. and he makes us sympathize with them, and even have immense respect for them. Which is why these movies might not be appropriate for young, impressionable minds. For fans of crime cinema and Italian mafia films, "L'ambizioso" is required viewing, and is worth tracking down.