Brigade spéciale

This is a dumb, but thoroughly enjoyable Italian police thriller from journey-man Italian director Umberto Lenzi. Maurizio Merli is not my favorite actor (he was kind of a cut-rate Franco Nero), but he's pretty entertaining here as an over-the-top vigilante cop who slaps around suspects, engages in dangerous high-speed chases, and has shoot-outs in busy downtown Rome. When five young punks rape a girl, he goes into their hangout BY HIMSELF and beats up ALL of them up before chasing down and eventually shooting one of them to death. Even when his superior (Arthur Kennedy) transfers him to the licenses unit, he won't stay out of the action. In one of the funnier scenes, he beats information out of a bartender, breaks into a suspect's apartment without a warrant, and chases him around the Rome rooftops (in a great cinematic scene), but after the whole thing goes awry, he blames his superiors for making him go "by the book" (if that's true I'd hate to see "the book").

This movie has a great supporting cast. Besides Arthur Kennedy (who was in movies like "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" and "Rico, the Mean Machine"), the movie features Ivan Rassimov, perhaps somewhat wasted as a low-level thug who gives his girlfriend an overdose of heroin simply because she's a "pain in the ass". The best of all though, is the great Tomas Milian as a psychotic hunchback, who starts out as a sympatheic figure, but turns out to be a frightening heavy. In one scene Meri's detective slaps him around and makes him swallow a bullet, which he later he craps out and vows to shoot the detective in the face with face with it for revenge!

The real weakness of this movie is the loose plotting. There's a lot of action set pieces, but the whole thing doesn't really hold together, especially whenever Milian is not on screen. The movie also could have used more women. Merli does have a pretty girlfriend (who the villains at one point threaten to put through a car compactor), but her role is pretty perfunctory.Still this is definitely a fun movie and I would recommend it.

Director Umberto Lenzi is widely known for his raw and uncompromising films of a variety of genres, his doubtlessly most famous films being his gory and gruesome Cannibal flicks "Cannibal Ferox" (1981) and "Mangiati Vivi" (1980). These are flicks one is not likely to forget, of course, but, as far as I am concerned, Lenzi's most memorable and brilliant achievements are his tough-minded and ultra-violent Poliziotteschi, such as "Milano Odia, la polizia non pùo sparare" (aka. "Almost Human", 1974) or this "Roma A Mano Armata" (aka. "Rome Armed To The Teeth"/"Brutal Justice") of 1976. "Rome Armed To The Teeth" is an action-packed fast-paced, brutal and breathtaking crime flick like it could only be made in Bella Italia, and a perfect proof for what gifted a director Lenzi was.

Even more than the foregoing "Milano Odia...", this delivers the absolute opposite of political correctness. Commissario Leonardo Tanzi (Maurizio Merli) is a super-tough and relentless cop with a mustache, whose unorthodox methods make Dirty Harry look like a peace-loving social worker. Respectless towards his (hypocritical) superiors and without any form of sympathy for offenders, Tanzi hates criminals as much as he hates crime, and he has no scruples to beat information out of suspects and bend the law whenever it is necessary to do the right thing. Tanzi is super-tough and the role seems as if it was written for Maurizio Merli. The great Tomas Milian (one of my personal all-time favorite actors) plays 'Il Gobbo', a hunchbacked and psychotic gangster. Milian is excellent in any role I see him play, and this particular role of the malicious and sadistic criminal fits him like a glove. Apart from Merli and Milian, who are both excellent in their roles, the cast includes a bunch of other regulars of Italian genre-cinema, such as Giampiero Albertini, who plays a cop, Luciano Catenacci, and, most prominently, Ivan Rassimov as a sleazy drug dealer. The film contains a vast amount of sleaze and brutality, and is definitely not for those who are very sensitive when it comes to violence. For my fellow lovers of Italian genre-cinema from the 70s, however, this is an absolute priority. The score by Franco Micalizzi is absolutely brilliant, the cinematography is excellent, and the film is tantalizing from the beginning to the end. Tough-minded and gripping throughout, "Roma A Mano Armata" is an ultra-violent and wonderfully politically incorrect Poliziottesco that no lover of Italian-genre cinema can afford to miss. In short: Brutal, brilliant, and an absolute must-see for all fans of Italian Crime cinema!

I don't know how the uncut Italian version runs, but the American version released by Aquarius under the ASSAULT W/A DEADLY WEAPON title is probably one of the most fastmoving, violently over-the-top Euro crime movies you'll ever see. The closest thing I could compare it to would be Kinji Fukasaku's early 1970s yakuza movies like BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR & HUMANITY series(aka THE YAKUZA PAPERS) with Bunta Sugawara or Kosaku Yamashita's TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE YAMAGUCHI GANG (released here in fastmoving but severely edited form as THE TATTOOED HITMAN). Although not as well written as its Japanese counterparts, Dardanco Sacchetti's screenplay is suitably deranged with Maurizio Merli portraying an apoplectic, hot tempered cop who makes Dirty Harry seem like a flower child. Super charismatic Tomas Milian is stupendous as the wisecracking hunchback psycho villain who occasionally likes to gratuitously machine gun innocent bystanders. My only problem with the English voice dubbing is that they didn't have Milian, who speaks English and dubbed many of his films himself, do his own voice. The guy who does it isn't terrible but it would have definitely added another aura of dementia with Milian's own vocal performance. Also unfortunately whomever the fast buck artists were who released the film here to USA grindhouses back in the 1970s created a completely fictitious credit list for the titles where Merli, Milian and even American movie veteran Arthur Kennedy receive no screen billing whatsoever. A crime! Likewise the adrenaline pumping, nerve pounding score by Franco Micalizzi and Umberto Lenzi's expert direction (this is the best film I've seen by Lenzi by the way) are credited to imaginary persons. Although it has a completely predictable cliche-ridden story, the treatment is fresh, the dialogue memorable (and often hilarious) and the ultra violence and degenerate depravity continous. Strangely satisfying and watchable as only the best of grindhouse cinema can be. As one of the other reviewers asked, where's the DVD release!?

Maurizio Merli and Tomas Milian star in probably the most typical, yet completely enjoyable Italian crime movie by Umberto Lenzi. With a blazing soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi and some exciting camerawork by Federico Zanni, this film is fast-paced and furious although the narrative makes relatively little sense. This reminds me of THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS, a film Dardano Sacchetti also penned, which was completely fun and enjoyable although it didn't make any sense whatsoever.

The best scenes in this movie have to be the extended car chases. Milian hijacks an ambulence and kills all the people on board for no reason. When it crashes in a crowded flea market, Milian jumps out of the ambulence and just starts randomly firing his sub-machine gun into the crowd to create enough confusion to get away. Another great scene has a gang of upper-class teenagers led by the baby-faced Stefano Patrizi who get bored of nightclubbing and proceed to rape a girl and beat up her boyfriend in a vacant lot. Patrizi is wholely unsympathetic as he punches the boyfriend in the gut repeatedly and knees him in the face, then making weird gestures with a nearby piece of wood. Merli later pops by their nightclub and smashes Patrizi's face right through a pinball machine and then simultaneously beats the tar out of the six or so members of the gang!

This film comes fast and furious. Good performances all around by a veteran cast (with Arthur Kennedy, Ivan Rassimov, and Luciano Pigozzi along for the ride). It's not the most coherent of Lenzi's works, but it's definitely a genre classic. Where's the DVD?

Roma a mano armata" barrels through the streets of 1970s Rome with a relentless energy that is impossible to ignore. The film's atmosphere is thick with tension and urban decay, painting a city teetering on the edge of lawlessness. Lenzi and cinematographer Federico Zanni craft a visual landscape that is both raw and kinetic; the camera rarely sits still, instead plunging viewers into the heart of car chases, shootouts, and back-alley confrontations. The film's grainy texture and on-location shooting lend it a documentary-like authenticity, though at times the frenetic editing can make the action feel chaotic rather than exhilarating. Still, the city itself becomes a character, its grimy streets and shadowy corners amplifying the sense of danger.

Maurizio Merli, as Commissioner Tanzi, delivers a performance that is all clenched jaw and steely resolve. He embodies the archetypal hard-nosed cop, bending rules and bristling against bureaucratic red tape. While Merli's presence is commanding, it is Tomas Milian who truly steals the show as the unpredictable and menacing "Il Gobbo." Milian infuses his villain with a manic energy and dark charisma, making every scene he appears in crackle with menace and unpredictability. The supporting cast, including Arthur Kennedy and Ivan Rassimov, provide solid backup, but the film is at its most compelling when Merli and Milian are at odds, their mutual animosity palpable even through the screen.

Despite its strengths, "Roma a mano armata" is not without flaws. The narrative is fragmented, jumping between subplots that showcase various criminal elements in Rome, from petty thieves to privileged delinquents. This mosaic structure adds variety but also muddles the pacing and dilutes the impact of the central storyline. At times, the film feels more like a collection of set pieces than a cohesive whole, and the script's attempts at social commentary are overshadowed by the barrage of violence and action. Still, for fans of the poliziotteschi genre, Lenzi's film delivers the goods: gritty action, memorable villains, and a pulsating score by Franco Micalizzi that keeps the adrenaline pumping.