Città violenta

This is a very underrated gangster pic that stars "Old Stoneface" himself. The plot is standard revenge fodder with a few twists added in for fun. It's pretty fast paced in it's execution and Morricone score is weird and atmostpheric. This is one of Charlie's better 70's efforts and the final scene is great filmmaking. It's too bad Ms. Ireland's nude scenes were cut out (only her midsection and cleavage are shown before cutting to the next scene) cause she can't act worth a damn.

***

There's absolutely no way that any movie can start off better than "Violent City". Charlie Bronson on a yacht with a ravishing blond chick, then moving onto land where the couple immediately gets subjected to a wild car chase through extremely narrow streets (and over stairs!) and ending with a violent shootout! And all this time not a single word is being spoken by anyone and all we here are the sounds of squeaking tires, snorting car engines and Ennio Moricone's umpteenth fabulous soundtrack. The first ten minutes of "Violent City" are so damn brilliant I was even tempted to stop watching the film because I honestly feared things could only go downwards from that point, ha! Luckily it didn't. Sure the pacing slowed down a bit (only a little bit, mind you) but a great film unfolds itself, with a simplistic but nevertheless compelling plot, gritty atmosphere and terrific acting performances by Charles Bronson (as the silent as always but deadly killer), Telly Savalas (as the sneering, sleazy and eccentric super-villain) and Jill Ireland (as the bimbo who appears to screw around with half of the city). Jeff is a retiring hit man who completes one more personal killing job when a former friend double-crosses him, leaves him for dead and runs off with his lady friend. Jeff's spectacular payback, executed at a race car circuit) gets him noticed by the big boss of the city's organized crime network. He wants Jeff to be a part of his successful crime-family, and when he refuses an exhilarating and testosterone-packed cat and mouse game ensues. The plot isn't highly original, but several independent sequences are magnificent, like the aforementioned opening, the intense finale or – most of all – the scene where Vanessa gets introduced to Weber (Savalas) in a restaurant. Sergio Sollima is a gifted director, who primarily earned his fame in the spaghetti western genre ("The Big Gundown" and "Run Man Run"). That's also exactly what "Violent City" often resembles; a gritty urban western with Bronson in his familiar role of lone outlaw passing through a town where no one can be trusted. If I understood correctly, the titular violent city is supposed to be Michigan, where strangely everyone speaks a combination of English and Italian. Funny detail on the Dutch DVD-release is that the dubbing is incomplete. Some of the dialogs start in English but halfway the conversation swifts to Italian and back to English again. Not at all bothering, especially not in case you looked forward to this movie as much as I did.

Director Sollima first forsook the Western genre with this stylish gangster drama: its complex revenge plot is, basically, a combination of two seminal American noirs – OUT OF THE PAST (1947) and POINT BLANK (1967). The end result is overlong and deliberately-paced – but the second half generates considerable tension, and the action sequences (particularly the opening car chase, a racing-car ‘accident’ and the climactic shoot-out in a rising elevator which, incidentally, are all the more effective for being completely dialogue-free) are undeniably well-staged and exciting.

The film also provided its star, Charles Bronson, with a virtual template for all his subsequent vehicles; though his real-life wife Jill Ireland (who appears in a surprising number of nude scenes) doesn’t quite cut it as a femme fatale, the couple’s chemistry is more than evident and gives credence to the on/off romance which essentially drives the narrative. Also in the cast: Telly Savalas (in his all-too-typical role of crime kingpin), Umberto Orsini (as a shady lawyer) and Michel Constantin (as Bronson’s ageing junkie pal). Beneficial, too, is the unusual New Orleans setting – and the remaining credentials are certainly imposing: “Euro Cult” fixture Ennio Morricone’s score is excellent (but, again, the main theme is awfully similar to that of REVOLVER [1973] and THE UNTOUCHABLES [1987]!); renowned cinematographer Aldo Tonti; and, most astonishingly, co-screenwriter Lina Wertmuller.

The DVD features an informative 15-minute interview with Sollima, in which he discusses how he became involved with the project: invariably, he had found the original script terrible but was eventually lured by the opportunity of a U.S. shoot, mentions that the lead roles were originally intended for Jon Voight and Sharon Tate(!), and even recalls an amusing anecdote which sums up Morricone’s attitude to films.

I'm a big fan of Sergio Sollima's ingenious Spaghetti Westerns, and Charles Bronson is without doubt a great enrichment to any movie he played in. Sollima's "Citta Violenta" aka. "Violent City" aka. "The Family" of 1970 is a very good crime/action flick with Bronson in the leading role and a great score by Ennio Morricone. "The Family" may not quite share the brilliance of Sollima's Westerns, but it is definitely a very solid, greatly acted film that no Bronson fan can afford to miss!

After hit man Jeff Heston (Charles Bronson) is double crossed by his girlfriend (Bronson's real life wife Jill Ireland), and almost gets killed by rival gangsters, he spends the following four years in prison. After getting out of jail, he wants to track down those who betrayed him. It is not so easy, however, to find out who was involved in his assassination attempt, and Heston has to make quite an effort to distinguish between friends and enemies.

Charles Bronson is once again great as the leading character, and definitely the best choice to play Jeff Heston. Telly Savalas also delivers a great performance as the boss of a crime family. Although many folks seem to think differently, I also found that Jill Ireland did a great job as femme fatale Vanessa. One of the few things that were not quite necessary in "Citta Violenta", were the endless car chases. Car chases are of course mandatory for a film like this, but when they get too long, they can get a bit boring easily. The car chase sequences here are usually followed by violent action, however. The movie is quite imaginatively photographed, and Ennio Morricone's score is, as always, great, and although it is a bit different to the 'typical' Morricone that we're used to from Westerns, it is immediately clear who composed this soundtrack.

A very well made action flick with a great leading performance by Bronson, "Citta Violenta" is a great flick, maybe not quite as essential as Sollima's Westerns, but immensely entertaining, atmospheric and totally badass, and not to be missed by a Bronson fan. 8/10

After the highly entertaining Run,Man, Run, writer/ Director Sergio Sollima returned with this satisfying,if not all successful, tale of a hit-man, Jeff, who gained a conscience (Charles Bronson) and his quest to find the people who've double-crossed him and had him thrown in jail (and almost killed). Mrs. Bronson, Jill Ireland, is on hand as the conniving girlfriend who along with local mafioso boss, Weber (Telly Savalas) play him for a patsy. Entertaining enough and the re-added minutes of footage in the Anchor Bay released DVD of this is very welcome. Any fellow Bronson appreciator will find nothing to complain about with this one, and Jill (it very well could be a body double though) supplies the T&A content quite nicely (and multiple times). Fans of the director will be slightly off-put as this isn't as good as his films that came directly before (Run, Man, Run, The Big Gundown, Face to Face), nor after (Revolver) all of which are highly recommended by me by the way. However this is still a welcome enough diversion.

My Grade: B-