L'ultima volta

This is an interesting Italian crime film in that is a "buddy movie" where the "buddies" are criminals rather than cops and there are a few more homoerotic overtones than usual. It kind of reminded me of Ruggiero Deodato's "Live Like a Cop, Die like a Man", but with more sympathetic protagonists.

An armed robber (Joe Dallesandro)and a part-time caterer (Massimo Ranieri) have a kind of male "meet cute" after the armed robber holds up a party the caterer is working. They then team up to rip off some mob money from a corrupt Vatican courier. They use the money to advance the armed robber's motorcycle-racing career (cue the 70's Italian motorcycle-racing footage), but soon find themselves pursued by merciless mob killers.

It's pretty hard to avoid the homoerotic overtones here, especially with American bisexual hustler/erstwhile actor Joe ("Little Joe") Dallesandro cast as one of the leads. He's pretty decent though, and Ranieri, who I'd personally never seen before, is actually pretty good. For the record, the movie doesn't actually ever give in to its homosexual undercurrents, but they do kind of waste a pair of beautiful Euro-actresses who seem to only be there to distract from the potentially gay relationship between the male leads. Marisa Mell is pretty much completely wasted as an older, married woman the Dallesandro character is sleeping with. Eleanora Giorgi has a bigger part (and full-frontal nude scenes), but doesn't have much more to do as Ranieri's love interest. The director is none other than Aldo Lado, who was also responsible for "Short Night of Glass Dolls", "Who Saw Her Die?", and "The Night Train Murders". This isn't quite up to the standards of those classics, but it's worth a look.

This one stars Andy Warhol 'superstar' Joe Dallesandro the anti-actor who starred in the cult classics Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein. It seems Joe got better at the acting game, as he's not bad here as a motorbike racer/thief who hooks up with a down-on-his-luck waiter and together they execute a series of crimes. As they hit bigger jackpots, they wind up in more danger. Its fairly standard stuff but not bad. Screen goddess Marisa 'Danger Diabolik' Mell pitches up in a minor role.

Aldo Lado gives us a much lighter film that Night Train Murders this time around, with a tale of a bromance...a criminal bromance, with motorcycle racing.

Sandro (Massimo Rieneri from Death Rage) is a humble pastry chef who also moonlights as a waiter. He's bored working for the man and wouldn't mind a big break, and things start looking up once young, hunky Pericles (Dallesandro) robs a dinner party he's working at. This leads him to get paid off, but he does meet up with Joe again, and after being charmed by Joe's confidence and ambition, lets him stay at his apartment.

Looks like a bromance is blossoming, although the way Joe walks about the place in the nude made me think Joe was wanting to take things a little further. Joe's excuse for the nudity was that he was having some sort of severe headache due to a prior motorcycle race injury, and that he just need fresh air. I didn't think Sandro looked that convinced.

Joe teaches Sandro how to bag snatch and grift and before you know it the two of them have stolen a bag from Marzia, who doesn't have much money but does own a red-hot diary that makes Sandro track her down for a date on the pretence that he found her purse. As you can see, so far, things aren't that grim in this film. Mostly.

Some kind of a plot arrives in the form of Joe's casual lover Marisa Mell (He even uses motorcycle dialogue while in the sack!). Marisa needs some money shifted out of the country and when Joe finds out how that's to be done, he comes up with a plan for one last heist. He also discovers there's a motorcycle race on, so he comes up with a plan for one last motorcycle race...

Given the lightweight material of the plot, Aldo Lado still manages to keep you interested in what's going on because of the chemistry between Joe and Sandro, and, let's face it, the immense amount of homo-eroticism between the two. Even when Marzia gets involved with Sandro, she wants Joe to join in! As this is a crime flick and not a comedy, there is an increasing amount of violence leading up to the end of the film, plus motorcycle racing if that's your thing.