Rome violente

Marino Girolami's "Roma Violenta" aka. "Violent Rome" of 1975 is a good, though not exceptional Poliziottesco that is very memorable for several reasons. This was the first of three films in which Maurizio Merli played the rough and ready copper Commisarrio Betti, the other two being Girolami's own "Italia A Mano Armata" (aka "A Special Cop In Action") 1976, and the great "Napoli Violenta" ("Violent Naples"), also of 1976. This is not the best of the films in which Maurizio Merli played unorthodox cops (of different names, but basically the same character), but it was the first one. The sequel "Napoli Violenta" is superior, and Merli's all-time highlight is "Roma A Mano Armata" (directed by Umberto Lenzi), but "Roma Violenta" is the film that made him one of the greatest stars in Italian Crime/Cop cinema. Furthermore this is the last film ever to star the great Richard Conte known for many films including "The Godfather" and Fernando Di Leo's Italian crime masterpiece "Il Boss" (1973).

As the title promises, the film takes place in Rome, and a violent city it is indeed. Comissario Betti (Maurizio Merli) is a tough, mustached copper whose unorthodox methods make Dirty Harry look quite clean. Betti is fed up with criminals getting away with their crimes, and he expresses his opinion both verbally and by his tough methods of crime-fighting... As most good Poliziotteschi at the time, "Roma Violenta" is very gritty, violent and delightfully politically incorrect. It seems as if Maurizio Merli was born to play super-tough unorthodox cops, and the role of Comissario Betti fits him like a glove. Good supporting performances come from Richard Conte, Ray Lovelock and especially John Steiner, who plays a ruthless criminal. Regular Genre bit-part actor Luciano Rossi is also typecast as a sadistic small-time crook. The film is full of action-packed car chases, violent shootouts and scenes of genre-typical brutality, all stylishly shot and accompanied by a nice score by the De Angelis brothers. As mentioned above "Violent Rome" is no particular highlight of Poliziotto-cinema. It is not quite as stylish as some other specimen of the genre, and it lacks the charismatic and diabolical main villain of films like "Milano Odia - La Polizia Non Può Sparare" (aka. "Almost Human", 1974) or "Roma A Mano Armata". It is a good example for the genre, however, and a highly influential one too, as it basically made Maurizio Merli THE unorthodox copper in Italian cinema. All things considered, "Violent Rome" is a film that I highly recommend to any of my fellow fans of Italian genre-cinema. My rating: 7.5/10

Man, Maurizio Merli has topped himself in the this CLASSIC police movie. The movie is about a cop, who is sick and disgusted by the way things are going, the criminals never seem to go to jail, and the bad guys seem to take advantage of the situation. That's where Merli comes in, he beats on them without flinching, his boss doesn't like it, so he kicks out of the force, but the story continues...( I won't give away anything, not even the suprise finally. Anyway, this according to me is a prime example of a classic Italian Pulp/thrash 70's movie. It's complete of old ladies, and children being shot in the face for no reason, rapes, angry people shooting each other in broad daylight. I give 2 thumbs up. You might remember Richard Conte in the movie "the Boss", here he plays a character that seems to have a heart(not a big heart, but at least he has one). Ray lovelock should have won an oscar as best supporting actor, and Maurizio Merli should have won a golden globe award

This is cheap and nasty film making at its best/worst. Sensational, kamikaziesque car chase sequences featuring Fiat 500s are the highlight of this marvelous time capsule from a raunchier, less precious era. Rome in the mid-70s looks grungy, edgy, poor and downbeat -- the perfect backdrop for this "Spaghetti Noir" homage to Eastwood's Inspector Callahan. The Foley-guy goes crazy during laughably excessive fight sequences, each blow delivered with an sickeningly unreal aural crunch. All manner of brutality is explored without shame or pity; no victim is too vulnerable - from aging female bystanders, to the wheelchair-bound. The acting is by turns wooden and hysterical, the extras either homicidal maniacs or their hapless victims. But the real highlights are the car chases, "exhilarating" doesn't do it justice. "Suicidal" comes close. Then again, having lived here for the past couple of years, it could be just another day in Roma traffic.

In autumn 1974, High Crime was a monster hit for the Italian movie industry, but neither superstar Franco Nero nor director Enzo G. Castellari were available for a follow-up cash-in. So the producer of Roma Violenta rang up Maurizio Merli, who had already impersonated Nero in the Jack London rip-off White Fang to the Rescue, and teamed him up with Castellari's papa (!) Marino Girolami. The first part of the Commissario Betti trilogy, a fierce and ferocious vigilante opera, has the rawest, most unleashed feel of the remorseless triptych – followed by the bigger budgeted, slicker and more generic Napoli Violenta and the utterly bleak Italia a Mano Armata – and delivers all the nasty way to hell, culminating quite early in a high class car chase involving an Alfa Romeo Giulia Super 1600 and a BMW 1800. Despite the loose, vignette-esque script by Vincenzo Mannino, Roma Violenta is spot-on throughout, with Merli – who actually considered himself superior to Nero – doing his Italian job with a somber, easy-to-underestimate bravura that serves as the single anchor in the widening gyre of the inferno. Sure, that's crypto-fascist dirt, a shame for a country that got rid of the Duce only three decades before, the most successful poliziottesco ever, and a tightly entertaining affair summarized best in the timeless words of N.Y. punk rockers Ed Gein's Car: "I've got five dollars for each of you/ And a bullet in the back/ Boo f*ckin' hoo."

I think my fellow reviewers are overstating things a bit. Roma Violenta is by no means a bad movie, but it does nothing any number of poliziotteschi films can't do better and it doesn't impress with what it does either.

Maurizio Merli plays another inspector, this time Commisarrio Betti. There's a healthy number of car chases, fistfights, gundowns and just about anything you would expect from a film of this kind, but it's all done with such a workmanlike air from Marino Girolami (Castellari's father) that I couldn't help but glance at my watch every now and then. Girolami does Roma Violenta with the get-it-over-with attitude of a professional instead of the enthusiasm of a fan. Get in, take the master shot, take the close-ups, get it over with cos there's a paycheck in the end. No imagination whatsoever. I can imagine him on set crossing things off a list: "Car chase? Check. Fistfight? Check".

Polizioto fans that need their fix will be satisfied by Roma Violenta, but if you haven't seen true genre classics like The Cynic, The Rat and The Fist, Almost Human or La Mala Ordina, then Roma Violenta can wait.