O Assassino Perfeito

I prefer seeing Lee Van Cleef in this kind of euro crime than in a Spaghetti western. Of course that's not the best of Van Cleef, but this one is rather agreeable to watch because without any length, which is a good point. The scheme is over over used but still entertaining for action movies buffs, especially from this sixties and seventies period; very different in the making from the eighties or even later. Back to this one, the hired killer in charge to eliminate one of his friends reminded me VERTIGE POUR UN TUEUR, but I repeat, this topic is not new at all. Maybe the female characters presence was not always adequate to the story but it could have been far worse because of this. Anyway this film is not on the same scale as THE MECHANIC, another close scheme, more or less.

Betrayed by his girl and best friend, thief Harry Chapman (Lee Van Cleef) takes the fall for a racetrack robbery. While in prison, he is offered a chance to participate in an escape plan. What he doesn't know is that once he is on the outside, the group responsible for the prison break has Harry in their debt and they use him as a hit-man. Naturally, he grows tired of the job and splits because he is hellbent on getting revenge on the former partners. So the mob puts young hit-man Luc (Robert Widmark) on Harry's trail.

It is kind of surprising that Van Cleef didn't do more Italian crime flicks in the 70s. To my knowledge, he only did this, MEAN FRANK AND CRAZY TONY (aka ESCAPE FROM DEATH ROW), and THE SQUEEZE. As it stands, this one is just kinda average. It doesn't really pick up until the last third. However, there are some great stand alone scenes like an attack by razor-wielding cross dressers (shades of the previous year's STRANGE SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM) and the final beach showdown. The craziest thing is how every woman seems to find Van Cleef - sporting a really bad rug - to be hot. Tita Barker (aka Carmen Cervera) is the love interest and John Ireland is Harry's confidant. Director Mario Siciliano previously worked with Widmark (aka Alberto Dell'Acqua) on some SARTANA westerns and also did the odd horror flick EVIL EYE (1975).

Years ago, I was given a VHS copy of 'The Satanic Mechanic' from a friend who knew of my love of bad movies. My God..I thought I was ready for this but I just wasn't equal to the task. The dialogue...the filler....aaaauuuggg! There is a scene of Lee Van Cleef parking his car that goes on for 5 minutes! My all time favorite scene has to be where Lee takes on a gang of transvestites in a steam bath, after kicking their asses he leaves with the line "See you in hell kid!" This is the only semi-satanic reference that I remember. I have no idea why this was named 'The Satanic Mechanic'. Not once does Lee Van Cleef do anything remotely mechanical or satanical. The cover of the VHS had a great photo of Lee taken from his '80s TV show 'The Master' (more confusion). I challenge anyone to sit through all off this movie! It breaks the rules of the space/time continuum in the way that time seems to reverse itself during the viewing. I myself have watched it over a dozen times and feel all the lesser for it.

Even though the copy of this film I watched was a blurred VHS pan and scan version, the wig on the Lee Van Cleef's head still kind of looked like a stamped badger.

The Perfect Killer starts off with Van Cleef getting ditched during a heist by his girlfriend Kristy, who dumps him for his mate Jack, then bails on him as he's caught by the police. In jail, some guy arranges for him to escape but only if he agrees to kill some people for a shady organisation. This he does, until he discovers that the last victim is the guy who sprung him from jail. He let's the guy escape, but it's too late as hot shot killer Luke (a rare starring role from Alberto Dell'Acqua) finishes the job on behalf of the organisation. This starts a bitter battle between the two men which will results in murder and mayhem.

That's only the beginning of the film, which is a shame because what follows really starts to drag. Van Cleef is given another job by a transvestite who sends him across the Med to kill a mystery person, but not before Luke shows up at the club to kill Lee and gets into a transvestite punch up which is no patch on the transvestite punch up that features in Strange Shadows in an Empty Room, a scene that surely won some award for transvestite punch-ups in 1976. When Lee gets to whatever country he's supposed to go to, he finds out, as you would expect, that his target is his old girlfriend Kirsty.

This is what kills this film pacing wise. Kirsty is still hooked up with Jack, but she's also having an affair with a young guy and plans on killing Jack to get insurance money off of non-chicken eating insurance guy Fernando Sancho, but then she's not really doing that because what she's doing is duping the young guy out of the money by pretending Jack is dead, and with the appearance of Van Cleef things get even more complicated as she then plans on running off with him, and when Luke arrives, he figures on killing everyone and taking the money. In addition, John Ireland turns up in a pointless cameo. Someone does throw a golden pheasant at him so it wasn't a total loss.

Things do pick up near the end when Luke appears to turn psychotic and starts murdering everyone, starting with that horny fashion model who has been stalking Cleef, but in general I just wasn't feeling it with this one. Lee Van Cleef didn't quite look like he was feeling it either to be honest, so it's Alberto Dell'Acqua who is the only actor with any life in him. Fernando Sancho is only in the film a few minutes so don't excited about that either.

You may see this film under the title "Satanic Mechanic" I suggest to anyone who likes great bad films to view this little gem. The montage is absolutely insane. Fantastic dialogue. Porkchop sideburns. This film has it all.