My personal favorite of overlooked director Mario Caiano's films, this movie is pretty much THE formula for an extremely successful 70's Italian crime movie. First off, it's got the exotic Neopolitan locations down pat and does a good job showing how brutal the streets can be with plenty of random bank-robbery and purse-snatching going on. Secondly, it's got a wonderful cast headed up by Henry Silva as a slimy underworld boss who gets a little too ambitious for his own good, robbing a money train and a refinery in broad daylight. Of course one shouldn't overlook Leonard Mann, Adolfo Lastretti, Benito Pacifico, Ottaviano Dell'Acqua and the rest of the regular euro-crime gang that pops by. Thirdly, this film has tons of action, violence, and random explosions to not only keep the casual viewer awake, but highly entertained!
Mario Caiano certainly nursed some deep inner antisocial and cruel streak as this film often goes out of its way into pure sadism. An example is where a car gets knocked out of the way by a big rig during a chase scene. The script probably simply said just that, but instead Caiano focuses on the poor family inside the car getting knocked around as it tumbles down an embankment and smashing into a gully. Is it good enough to show they're dead? No, just in case you had any doubt they'd be okay, the car then bursts into a massive explosion far in excess of whatever fuel was in the tank. It's almost comical in its cruelty.
This is probably one of the most violent of the 70's Italian crime films with lots of shootouts, protracted car crashes, people on fire, mutilated faces, a Gino De Rossi-patented decapitation, and such. Additionally, a very memorable musical score by Francesco De Masi, possibly one of his best and most widely copied of all his scores.
This film has many tie-ins with Umberto Lenzi's NAPOLI VIOLENTA (which starred Maurizio Merli and John Saxon), since it has a reappearance of the Gennaro kid that got crippled in that movie, here he's back and turned to a life of petty crime. The musical cues that follow little Gennaro in particular are very memorable, as they vary on the same theme depending on the situation, creating a very good effect towards the tragic ending.
For a crude, down-n-dirty excursion into the mean streets of 70's Naples, I can't recommend this movie enough. It's too bad NAPOLI SPARA is just so hard to find. It's not as slick as any of Umberto Lenzi's films from around the same time but delivers on most of the rest of the goods.
-UPDATE AT OF 2020- Back in 2012 I ran into Leonard Mann by complete coincidence walking by me on Las Palmas Ave. in Hollywood, California while he was on his phone. Not bothered by a random fan in the least, he actually hung up on his call immediately after I said, "hey Leonard!". I asked him about this movie and he laughed, saying that we were probably the only two people in a thousand mile radius who had ever heard of WEAPONS OF DEATH (which he referred to by its English title). He's a really nice and relatable regular guy who said he loved working on Italian films but couldn't parlay his career too well into American cinema. He ended up going to the psychiatrist so many times due to his frustration that he ended up becoming one himself, now only dipping his toe into creative work here and there by penning the occasional play.
