La race des violents

I really can't understand why everyone is panning this film. I don't usually like "action films" but this one, (along with the non-stop action) held my interest because unlike most of this genre, the characters were unusual and developed enough to be interesting. Harrison Muller, the lead actor, has a great screen presence and does well with this very active role and he gives it a very cool character, so you just have to like him. The situations in the plot were not that obvious to me, so it held my interest throughout when unexpected turns in events occurred. It's true that after the opening sequence Henry Silva was wasted....but the female characters more than made up for it. They added a lot to the story with their widely different personalities. My only negative impression was the startling and preposterous ending. I couldn't quite accept it. Harrison Muller, Jr.'s engaging, energetic performance is indicative of his talent which deserved better showcases than the films he appeared in. They are worth watching only to see him, and he steals every one of them even when acting with bigger named co-stars. It's incredible that he didn't become a bigger star himself.

I caught up with this movie in the late eighties when I rented it on a local video store. It was a bad recorded VHS tape transfered directly from a bad 35mm copy. The main reason I rented it is because Carol André, the beautiful actress from the SANDOKAN TV series was on the cast. The movie is incredibly awful, beyond the worst I have seen so far. Bad actors, terrible acting, horrible script, unintelligible plot and some sequences that really made me feel guilty for having rented it. Unforgettable is the character Polo, one of the most naff villains to appear ever on an action movie. Also the scenes with the silly and clumsy main character jumping in and out of windows really made me laugh out loud. No doubt I expect the day to watch it again to laugh again at it. But this time I expect not to pay a single cent.

My review was written in December 1985 after watching the movie on MGM/UA video cassette.

Italian filmmaker Fernando Di Leo seems to have made the actioner "The Violent Breed" without a finished script. Story and characters' behavior makes no sense at all and the action is perfunctory. Domestic distributor Cannon Films elected to send this 1983-lensed junker direct to home video without theatrical exposure.

Henry Silva toplines (in a very small role) alongside the ubiquitous Harrison Muller and vet Woody Strode as three commandos whose mission to rescue kids in Southeast Asia leads to an unexplained falling out when Strode turns against his buddies.

Without transition, next scene is back in the States, with Silva now a CIA honcho sending Muller back to the Cambodia/Thailand/Laos border area in search of Strode. It seems that Strode, in league with the KGB and the Mafia, is running drugs and arms and generally acting like a nogoodnik. Muller teams up with a beautiful, underage prostitute there to find Strode's camp and ludicrously offer him a deal whereby the U. S. government would best the Russians and the Mafia's price for drugs. This leads to pointless shootouts.

Finale, making no sense from what has gone before, has Silva, Muller and Strode suddenly teamed up for another mission, the slate magically wiped clean.

If you can believe this nonsense, you'll probably believe in Strode, dubbed with another person's voice, as a character named Paolo.

On a mission in Vietnam Kirk, Mike and Polo are the only survivors of their platoon who rescue a bunch of children, but Polo stays behind when they get to their boat and tells them to leave. Polo happens to be in arms and drug trafficking operation with the KGB and the mafia. Kirk now working for the CIA sends out Mike to Vietnam to stop Polo's enterprise.

What an incoherent mess. The good folks of Cannon produce this very low-rent Italian b-action fodder. Well there's not a whole lot to say about this one, but it's poorly executed and the cast are all but washed up. Woody Strode and Henry Silva go through the motions with such little effort, while the leading man Harrison Muller provides the personality, but his timing seems off. Most the time his running and jumping in or out of windows. Those sneakers of his cop a real work out. Carole Andre's sly part was small, but prominent. The no frills action drags on, especially the film's final standoff where the bad guys have terrible aim and plenty of explosions are assured. The continuous gun fire also made sure that there was some bloody pulp. But boy does it go on, because if feel like its in slow motion! The tempo throughout stays mellow and lacks oomph. How about that conclusion though?! Talk about baffling. The one-man team of Fernando Di Leo who directed and wrote the screenplay and story does a clumsy job on all fronts. The whole premise is slipshod and embarrassingly one-note, and the insipid script chalks up many tacky lines. His blunt direction is quite aimless and clunky. Being shot location in the Philippines gives the film a raw touch and makes it quite ugly to look at. The hybrid sounding music score seems to actually work and fit right in, despite some junky passages.

Never boring, but there's no denying how unbelievably trite it turns out to be.

The scripts of 80s action movies with beefcake mercenaries going on jungle missions aren't exactly rocket science. Also, I never really considered myself to be very dumb person. And yet, "The Violent Breed" was too intelligent for me. At least, I can only come to that conclusion since I didn't understand anything about the relations and intrigues between the three lead characters. First, in Vietnam, they are buddies and save each other's lives. Then, two of them go hunt down the third in Thailand. But then at the end they are buddies again.

Ah well, it doesn't matter all that much. Italian-made "Rambo" rip-offs are already enjoyable and successful if they contain extreme violent massacres and numerous explosions. There's plenty of that, rest assured! Harrison Muller, Woody Strode, and their henchmen, shoot holes in each other's bodies the size of watermelons and two complete mid-jungle villages blow up in the air. Charismatic Henry Silva is sadly underused, but Harrison Muller is a more than adequate Rambo clone with a good taste in woman.

Writer director Fernando Di Leo made some of the very best euro-crime thrillers of the 70s, including "Milano Caliber .9" and "Shoot First, Die Later", and that's probably what I'll remember him for the most. "The Violent Breed" is okay, but could and should have been a lot better.