Il cittadino si ribella

"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!

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.

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.

Italian cult/exploitation cinema from the 1970s is definitely my favorite type of film-making, but I just cannot seem to decide whether my number #1 beloved sub genre is the Spaghetti Western, the Giallo or the Poliziotteschi. Recently, and thanks to having seen a couple of brilliant titles like "The Big Racket" and "Revolver", I'm leaning most towards the Poliziotteschi again and evidently my expectations for "Street Law" were also set incredibly high. Of course this has to be a great movie, with a director like Enzo G. Castellari and a cast led by none other than Franco Nero. Due to its vigilante themes and time of release, many ignorant people claim that "Street Law" is nothing but a quick attempt to cash in on the tremendous success of "Death Wish", with Nero copying the famous role played by Charles Bronson, but I swear you this film is much more than an uninspired rip-off. It's an action/thriller classic in its own right with story lines, action sequences and characters drawings that are totally different than anything featuring in "Death Wish", or any other contemporary vigilante-thriller for that matter. During the exhilarating opening sequences, Castellari already shows a lovely montage – guided by adrenalin-pumping music – illustrating that the streets of a nameless big Italian city are infested with violent crime. During broad daylight there are muggings, car and home jacking, robberies, drive-by shootings, nihilistic mafia executions and there are never any police authorities in sight! In this same city, Franco Nero stars as the anonymous lab-worker Carlo Antonelli who's unlucky enough to walk into a bank with his personal savings moments before three savage robbers come storming in. When Carlo too obviously tries to recover some of his own money, the robbers roughly take him hostage and leave him severely beaten up in their getaway car. Frustrated, humiliated and accused by the police of being provocative, Carlo vows to track the criminals himself. This is where the big differences with films like "Death Wish" become unmistakable, because Carlo obviously isn't a forceful fighting machine or strategic genius and spends most of the film's running time either getting physically pulverized or getting busted when trying to infiltrate into the underworld. Come to think of it, this might even be Franco Nero's least heroic role! Carlo's beautiful wife (the yummy Barbara Bach) is worried sick about him and he only starts making some progress when he gets help from small time crook Tommy. "Street Law" is a terrific film, but still plays in a lower league than the absolute most thrilling Poliziotteschi classics like "Almost Human", "Milano Calibro 9", Rome armed to the Teeth" or "Rabid Dogs". There are many fantastic action sequences, most notably the final shootout in the hangar, but I still found this film less sadist and shocking than I secretly hope in this type of cinema… Oh, one more thing: dubbing always matters! This is the second or third time that I watch a film in which Franco Nero's rough and manly Italian voice is dubbed by a rather squeaky and insecure English voice, which gives makes his performance somehow weaker. Still though, a truly recommend Italian 70s cult flick!

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. (**)