La cité de la violence

One of the better Charles Bronson films, with an exhilarating wordless car chase opening sequence, a memorable shock ending, and one of Ennio Morricone's greatest scores. The story does not sustain its initial momentum, but the film is stylishly shot throughout by Sergio Sollima, who gives it the flavor of an urban spaghetti Western. Bronson is typically muscular and assured; Jill Ireland, whom I often find bland, is quite hot this time, and gives one of her most accomplished performances. **1/2 out of 4.

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.

***

First of all i must admit that i'm a Charles Bronson fan and have been for quite a while. I have seen a lot of his films including all of them made after Violent City. So when i came across the movie being released on DVD and i was still yet to see it, i was quick to buy it. The DVD is presented in a fantastic format (trailer, production and movie stills, 15 minute interview with the director and cast and crew backgrounds). The movie is structured in a very unique way. Being an Italian/French coproduction and filmed largely in New Orleans the film consists of English and Italian dialogue to satisfy both cultures and uses flashback scenes to illustrate what is a very straightforward story of hitmen and mobsters and doublecrossings. The music score is by Ennio Morricone and as expected first rate. The cast is headed by Bronson. He doesn't talk much in this movie, more so than in his other outings and uses more of a physical style of acting with many close ups on his charactaristic face. He does well as usual. Telly Savalas has a small, but important role as the head of his "family". His philosiphies to Bronson are interesting. And Jill Ireland as Vanessa is truly seductive. She has never looked more beautiful than in this movie and you get to see plenty of her in this version. Her acting is not great but not too bad compared to some of her later stuff with her husband. As a whole i wasn't expecting too much but "Violent City" is quite under-rated and does have some very good scenes including a car chase, a sniper scene and the very well done ending. There are no good guys in this movie, but it is truthful. I give it a 7 out of 10, but i don't know if non-Bronson fans would enjoy it as much. I hope they continue to put more of Charlie's films on DVD and done in a similar way. Particularly "Rider On The Rain", "The Mechanic", "The Valachi Papers" and the little known Bronson/Curtis "You Can't Win 'Em All.

Charles Bronson is at his coolest and most bad ass in this entertaining Italian crime flick. Bronson plays Jeff Heston, a professional hit man who wants to leave that line of work behind him. But his associates will have NONE of that, and spend a lot of time trying to set him up and take him out. When attempts are made on his life, Jeff makes it his mission to get revenge on the old "friend" and current flame who tried to eliminate him.

Adding a shot in the arm is Telly Savalas, appearing around the one hour mark, as a slick, rich gangster, Al Weber. Telly is a lot of fun to watch. Female lead Jill Ireland is less satisfactory (but looks amazing), but she's not bad as this scheming, conniving person. The excellent international cast also includes Michel Constantin as Killain, Umberto Orsini as Steve, and Ray Saunders as one of Jeffs' cell mates.

This twist laden script, with six people in total credited for the story and screenplay (including Lina Wertmuller and director Sergio Sollima), has the potential to confuse the viewer, especially as it doesn't always exist in one time frame. But Sollima does an excellent job at crafting the action. One can hardly fail to notice that the opening set piece plays out wordlessly, with no actors speaking until about 12 minutes along. A climactic elevator ride similarly plays out almost without sound. The camera work is first rate, as is the use of various locations. The pacing may cause some viewers to fidget, as it's very deliberate most of the time.

Bronson fans will see a different side of him here, as he roughs up his real life wife Ireland on more than one occasion. He's not a squeaky clean protagonist, for sure. The ending may likewise take some people by surprise.

Overall this is stylish trash, well shot in Techniscope and featuring a typically eclectic soundtrack courtesy of the legendary Ennio Morricone. There are also little doses of nudity along the way.

Seven out of 10.

Uh-oh! We've got a hit-man here who has fallen in love and wants to go straight – we all know that there's only one way to leave the mob, right? Bronson is the hit-man and Jill Ireland is the chick who's turned his head, and after one of my favourite credit sequences ever where we see Bronson under observation to a kick-ass Morricone soundtrack, a bunch of guys turn up to waste our stone-face killer. One car chase and a double-cross later, Bronson's having bullets pulled out of him and sent to jail for a while.

It gives him plenty of time to stew over what's happened. Seems the last guy who hired to him to kill someone has double-crossed him and somehow his missus seems to be involved. Being a 'let bygones be bygones' kind of guy, Bronson's first task upon being released from jail is to try and track down these two and kill them both.

Luckily for us his past-employer is also a race car driver! That gives us a lengthy sequence at a race track where Bronson scopes out a good place to take out this guy with a sniper rifle, a sequence which is dialogue free and lasts about ten minutes. Also, it takes place under a huge advertisement for Pan-Am airlines, so I guess they were fitting the bill for the film, or Sergio Sollima was just a big fan of that airline.

Once this guy has been incinerated, Bronson starts receiving pictures of him setting up the kill at the race track, and realizes that starting a new life won't be so easy after all…

Those expecting an action-packed film with Bronson taking down waves of bad guys would probably be better switching the film off around the ten minute mark because the film is more about Bronson brooding about his relationship with Jill Ireland and arguing with Telly Savalas (a mob boss who is blackmailing Bronson and wants to hire Bronson full time). Savalas is good here as a seemingly legit-businessman who may be telling more home truths than Bronson wishes to hear.

Set possibly in New Orleans and Detroit Michigan at the same time (I was a bit confused by that), the film looks great, sounds great and for the first half is great, but be warned that pace slows way down before you get to the grim ending. Also, the version I watched had eight minutes of extra footage added in Italian with English subtitles that seems to add a bit more depth to the proceedings.

For the mopiest hit-man that wants to leave the mob, look out for Tony Arzenta!