Commando terreur

Wahey! It's another Violent (Insert Italian City here) film...which doesn't mean anything.

Claudio Cassanelli is strangely dubbed as an armed robber involved in a payroll robbery that goes badly wrong when someone triggers the alarm. Claudio, his junky mate John Steiner, his other two mates Walter and Triepo end up killing a few folk and end up split up with Walter and Triepo going to ground with the cash while Claudio and Steiner take two hostages and try and escape the city limits.

When Steiner guns down a policeman in cold blood and drives a motorbike face first into a truck, Claudio finds himself alone, without any money, and with the police slowly beginning to twig as to who he actually is. Meanwhile, his two so-called buddies are fixing to keep the cash for themselves, killing the guy who gave them the car for the robbery and his hooker girlfriend...

Initially the film carries on the usual tradition of gun battles, car crashes and shouting, but soon settles in to a laid back, grim character study of Cassanelli as a nasty guy who will do anything to get his money back. It's good that Cassanelli is a strong actor because he carries this film on his shoulders, even though a lot of the film is devoted to the ongoing police investigation (which bogs the film down). There's also the worst romantic sub-plot ever! I mean that as in Claudio doesn't even indulge in pillow talk and basically says the relationship is nothing.

Coming from the guy who made The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe, this one is a lot less manic and bit hard going in places, but you can't beat Cassanelli, who is the human version of the cartoon dog Droopy. He's dubbed by a guy who sounds like he smokes 100 cigs a day.

What do most of the really cool Poliziotesschi movies from the 70's have in common? That's right, they practically all star Maurizio "Moustache" Merli as the obsessive and unorthodox copper relentlessly pursuing and killing off bad guys! In "Milano Violenta", you see what happens in case Merli was unavailable or didn't get cast. The replacement police officers are so anti-charismatic and boringly working by the book that the gangsters begin hunting down each other instead! Of course, this is an exaggeration, and I massively enjoyed Mario Caiano's "Milano Violenta", but the film truthfully lacks a powerful authority figure in addition to the fierce cat-and-mouse games between the criminals mutually.

You certainly cannot claim that "Milano Violenta" starts off too slow. During the textbook Poliziotesschi opening credits, four vicious types speechlessly step into a car, clearly prepared for the well-planned heist of a company that is about to pay their employees' bonuses in cash money rather than the usual bank cheques. Things go seriously wrong, with two of the robbers driving off with the loot before the police arrives. The remaining two kill someone, take a few hostages and manage to run off separately although the entire building is surrounded with cops. We missed you already here at this point, Maurizio! The getaway of one gangster (John Steiner is an awesome guest appearance) ends face-first against a truck, while the other - Raul - furiously goes after his two treacherous companions. "Milano Violenta" is straightforward and unpretentious exploitation entertainment, with a nasty villains, exhilarating music, raw atmosphere and nihilistic violence. The explicit highlights include John Steiner's grisly fate and a brutal execution at a car junkyard. The unearthly beautiful Silvia Dionisio provides the film with mandatory nudity as the docile prostitute/gangster's love-interest (as you probably know, Poliziotesschi movies are not exactly famous for their depiction of strong women). Claudio Cassinelli is very good as the intimidating and ruthless gangster, carrying the entire film seemingly without effort. Cassinelli died 10 years later, in a helicopter crash on the set of Sergio Martino's "Fists of Steel". What a great loss for the Italian cult film industry!

The devilishly dishy Italian acting icon, Claudio Cassinelli is on murderously magnetic form in 'Milano Violenta', playing cynical, street tough brute, Raul Montalbani with an electrifying intensity! After a bungled heist leaves him wounded, separated from both his crew and ill-gotten loot, the vengefully convalescing, Raul swears to make amends! After revivifying himself with vats of J & B whiskey, and restoratively rogering his spectacularly nubile girlfriend, Layla (Silvia Dionisio), Raul ruthlessly tracks down his conniving compadres with all the delicacy of rabid hyena!

Determined to retrieve ALL his share of the money by any means necessary, Raul proceeds to viciously dispatch any man/woman/invertebrate unfortunate enough to cross his vengeful path with a single-minded ferocity! Maestro, Mario Caiano's vastly underappreciated, high-octane poliziottesco, 'Bloody Payroll' seethes with a blistering bellicosity, this thrilling, increasingly sadistic, balaclava-blasting crime classic climaxes with a screen-meltingly savage showdown between the sociopathic, Montalbani, and the ever decreasing members of his treacherous gang! Generously peppered with screeching bullets, splashy squibs, bloody beat-downs, and audacious-looking vehicular carnage, the Noirish, 'Milano Violenta' remains an exhilarating example of unfiltered Euro-crime excess! And the exceptionally lively, block-rocking themes by Pulsar Ltd are certainly no less funky than the exquisite Italian decor, pristine vintage fashions, and delicious Dionisio's dynamite bod!

Director Mario Caiano is not one of the better known Italian directors; but he's certainly one of the most underrated and has proved himself more than capable of delivering the goods on a number of occasions with films such as Calling All Police Cars, Night of the Doomed, and this film. The Polizi genre is best known for it's fun action flicks with a focus on car chases and shootouts; but with this film, the director has taken the theme and added an extremely grim atmosphere to it, and this bodes well with the plot line which takes in a robbery gone wrong, a resulting war between the criminals and a police investigation. The film opens with a bank robbery in which the crooks make off with a load of money which was intended for some workers' pay packets. This interests Police Commissioner Foschi as the wages are normally paid in cheque. Things haven't gone well for the criminals either, as two of them have decided to rip the other one off, leading him to track down his former partners with the cops on all of their tails.

The film is not as action packed as some other genre entries, but there's certainly enough to entertain the audience. The leading characters are all fleshed out nicely and provide one of the most interesting things about the film. The leading standout is undoubtedly Claudio Cassinelli who impresses as the amoral and very nasty criminal at the centre of the film. He gets good support from a very capable supporting cast. By 1976, the Giallo genre had almost completely died out; but Mario Caiano, as he did with Calling All Police Cars a year earlier, has still seen fit to implement some Giallo style scenes which certainly help the film. There are a handful of murders, which include stabbing, shooting and burning, and it helps to give the film its nasty edge. It soon becomes clear that the film is not going to end on a happy note, and Caiano delivers just the sort of depressing ending that you would expect from the film. Overall, Bloody Payroll may not be one of the best Polizi films to come out of 1970's Italy, but it's certainly a very good one and is well worth the trouble of tracking down!