A grande Extorsão

Along with Fernando DiLeo and Sergio Martino, Enzo Castellari is one of the Italian genre directors whose work has really been rehabilitated lately thanks to people like Quentin Tarantino. And, however, you feel personally about QT, it's hard to fault his tastes. Castellari, whose father (Marino Girolami) and uncle (Romolo Guerreri) were also respected Italian directors, made many films in many genres, including Westerns ("Any Gun Can Play"),gialli ("The Cold Eyes of Fear"), and horror flicks("Sensitiva"). His two most famous films were "The Last Shark", which never shown in the US because of an injunction brought by the makers of "Jaws", and "Inglorious Bastards", which Tarantino recently (and very loosely) remade. This movie is not one of his more famous, but it is definitely one of Castellari's best.

Fabio Testi plays a cop who is taking on a big, mafia-connected protection racket that is shaking down businesses all over Italy, and using disgruntled left-wing university students, including a tough female ( ) to do it. Frustrated by the limitations of the law, Testi eventually puts together a gang of victims of the racket including Vincent Gardenia, a small-time crook who lost his nephew to the gang, an Olympic champion skeet shooter who lost his wife, and perhaps most touching, a restaurant owner who went crazy after the gang raped his young daughter and she killed herself. Together they plan an improbable, but not entirely unbelievable, campaign to take down the entire racket.

This movie has a lot of the elements of a police thriller, but also of a rape-revenge/"Deathwish"-type movie. I wouldn't really call it "fascist" though because it really doesn't glorify violence (not too many people are left alive by the end of this). The protagonists, especially Testi's character, are flawed, three-dimensional, and vulnerable rather than being just a heroic super-cop types. And this has downbeat, noirish elements like some of the early American police thrillers of that period (i.e. "Dirty Harry", "The French Connection", "Deathwish"), but that were definitely lost by the happy-fascist Reagan era. These aren't self-righteous, fascist crime fighters, but decent people driven to extremes in a violent, decaying society. Of course, as an action movie this is still very entertaining, but the realistic violence and three-dimensional characters always keeps it from simply degenerating into another cop-worshipping cartoon. Recommended.

Italian, very familiar tale of cop who breaks the rules, gets suspended from the force, and then proceeds to dish out justice. In this case, Fabio Testi recruits the crime victims for his vigilante force. The film does not disappoint in the violence, rape and general mayhem. One gigantic question has to be what is Vincent Gardenia doing in this movie? He seems tragically out of his wise cracking element, and his considerable dark comedic talents are totally wasted. Expect plenty of ultra mindless violence, pretty decent stunts, brief full frontal nudity, and little character development. Although the action is substantial, some is redundant enough that things drag in places. Good of it's kind, and recommended. - MERK

I have now seen quite a few of the Italian crime films made in the 70s. The Big Racket is easily among the better Poliziotteschi I've so far run across. The violent action is non-stop. The film rarely takes a break for the viewer to catch a breath. Fabio Testi stars as Inspector Nico Palmieri, a cop determined to put an end to the protection racket run by a group of local thugs. But the seemingly small time thugs are actually part of a larger group with the goal of spreading their reign of terror to a much larger scale. Nico enlists the aid of a handful of men who have been directly affected by the gang's activities to help him wipe out the entire group of gangsters. But does this small seemingly rag-tag band of misfits stand a chance against a much larger band of killers?

The Big Racket is gritty, violent, sadistic, and nothing is held back. Director Enzo Castellari has crafted some amazing action sequences. The shootouts at the train station and the final battle at the warehouse are some of the better scenes of this type I've seen. And the scene featuring Testi rolling down a hill inside a car is so well done and so realistic that I actually worried about Testi's health. The Big Racket also features a couple of rape scenes that can be difficult to watch, yet they add immensely to the overall feel of the film and supply realistic motivation for the vigilante actions to follow. These scenes are brutal and sadistic and show the depravity these thugs are capable of and why they must be eliminated.

Fabio Testi gives one of his better performances that I've seen in The Big Racket. Unlike The Heroin Busters, where I never bought into Testi's character, he is completely believable in this film. The rest of the main supporting cast is just as good. My favorite supporting performance comes from Orso Maria Guerrini, the marksman who goes mad for vengeance after watching his wife get raped and burned alive. Much of the cast is made up of stunt people who do an adequate job given their limited experiences in front of the camera.

Overall, if you're a Poliziotteschi fan or just a fan of American cop films from the 70s and have never seen an Italian crime film, The Big Racket is a definite must.

When a powerful gang of extortionists forces the businessmen of an Italian city to pay for their protection, the tough Inspector Nico Palmieri (Fabio Testi) investigates the case; however he is surprised by the racketeers and ends seriously injured. When he is discharged from the hospital, he joins the victims of extortion trying to find a witness to testify in court since the mobsters are always released by the Attorney Giovanni Giuni (Antonio Marsina). Only the restaurant owner Luigi Giulti (Renzo Palmer) accepts the burden; but his daughter is brutally raped by the gangsters and commits suicide later. Nico is pressed by his superiors to drop the case but he invites his friend Pepe (Vincent Gardenia) to help him using illegal methods believing that the end justifies the means. There is a war between the criminals and the police with tragic consequences, and Nico is fired from the police department. Nico decides to join Luigi; Pepe; a marksman that saw his wife being raped and burned alive; the owner of a nightclub that should use brace for the rest of his life; and a felon that wants a passport and destroy the gang in a battle that becomes bloodshed between vigilantes and criminals.

"Il Grande Racket" is a great non-stop action movie, with a violent story of racket and revenge à la Charles Bronson and conclusion à la Spaghetti Western. Of course there are clichés and exaggeration in the situations and shootouts, but in the context they work perfectly well for fans of this genre. The dubbing in English is awful, as usual, and I do not understand why not keep the original language with English subtitles. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

While not the bloodiest film per-say, this is easily one of the most violent, as in most death/action vs. running time ratio of any crime movie I've seen in recent memory. On top of that, it's got a good multilayered story of several men disenfranchised by a protection mob, who all team up to take out the trash in one massive vigilante-style raid. Most are very good characters too, especially Orso Maria Guerrini who goes from an average Joe skeetshooter to a silent assassin once the thugs rape and murder his wife. Renzo Palmer's transition is a little less subtle, and his vengeful character gets a little irritating. Vincent Gardenia is good as a very suave pickpocket and wise-guy, while Testi is his usual pretty-boy self who of course looks so handsome that in some shots he looks more like an Anime cartoon character than an actual human.

Despite the bad profanity-censored English dubbing (which substitutes 'basket' for 'bastard', 'dung' for the S-word etc.), this is otherwise a solid film. Before John Woo, this was as stylish and as violent as action movies got. There's at least 3 major shootouts, two of which are real standouts, and all of which have their fair share of amazing shots. For instance when Fabio Testi kills the thug who kills his partner – a slow motion shot of the thug flailing around in the foreground and Testi in the background shooting at him – you can see each exit wound corresponding to Testi's gunfire. Another amazing shot is film from inside Testi's car as it rolls down a hillside (complete with Testi inside trying to shield his eyes from the flying window-glass). Castellari demonstrates a solid eye for detail and is an expert at transitions – plenty of slow motion too. Big Racket also features some surprisingly good dialog in the case of most of the thug's threats, and then again near the end when the evil crime boss rants and raves about how to run a protection mob (and then turns out to be a total coward when guns are pointed at him).

An excellent comic book crime/action movie – let's hope that promised uncut DVD comes out soon in the US.