La guerre des gangs

Antonio Sabato is the perfect mixture of smarm and charisma in the role of Salvatore "Toto" Cangemi. He's a big name in the produce business in Milan, but this is really just a legitimate front for what he really likes to do: run a prostitution ring. His troubles begin when a smooth French criminal, Roger "The Captain" Daverty (Philippe Leroy), starts putting the pressure on Toto to get into drugs. Toto is pretty peeved, especially when The Captain insists on pocketing most of the potential income. This leads to a war between Toto and his fellow Sicilians and the Frenchman and his gang, with some interesting twists and turns along the way.

It's amusing watching an amoral p.o.s. like Toto be the focal point of a solid, if unexceptional, Eurocrime story. You don't like him - he's misogynistic, for one thing - but he remains fairly compelling. In fact, in this yarn there are very few innocents, or characters with genuine rooting interest. Still, it's fun to watch as these not-so-honourable crooks figure out ways to mess with each other. The film has its moments of violence - like acid thrown in a face, or the mutilating of a breast - but in truth is not all that gory. It IS an entertaining exercise in sleaze, and fans of the genre will have cause to be reasonably pleased. It's very nicely shot in widescreen and given an atmospheric score by Carlo Rustichelli.

Sabato is ably supported by a rich gallery of European talent: Leroy as the drug kingpin, Antonio Casagrande as Totos' associate Lino, lovely Carla Romanelli as novice hooker Virginia, Alessandro Sperli as wise American mobster Billy Barone, Franco Fantasia as the Inspector tasked with fighting organized crime, Tano Cimarosa as the victimized Nino Balsamo, and sexy Marisa Mell as Jasmina Sanders, the woman who turns Totos' head.

Noteworthy as the first Eurocrime feature for Umberto Lenzi, who may be better known (at least to some North American viewers) for his horror films of the 80s, like "Cannibal Ferox" and "Nightmare City".

Trashy and politically incorrect, "Gang War in Milan" shows its audience a good time.

Seven out of 10.

As other reviewers have said this Umberto Lenzi "polizieschi" really pales compared to the director's earlier "Almost Human", which was one of the best of the entire genre, and Anthony Sabato is indeed a poor substitute for the great Tomas Milan. But this one does have its moments. This movie is about a "gang war in Milan" (the English title) between Sicilian pimps and French-connection drug dealers. The leader of former group (Sabato)brings in another menacing Sicialian godfather "Billy Barone" (Alessandro Sperli, who gives by far the best performance here) who ultimately turns out to be an even bigger threat than the "Frenchies".

Most of the violence here is actually aimed at the prostitutes who get raped, beaten, have acid thrown in their faces, etc (although the testicles of one male character do suffer an unfortunate encounter with a car battery). The violence against women may be kind of turn-off for some, but it's also pretty standard for this genre. Marissa Mell is kind of wasted as the protagonist's gold-digging upper-class girlfriend, but the luscious Carla Romanelli (who played the sexy maid in "The Sensuous Nurse") is good as a sympathetic streetwalker.

The film is enjoyably amoral. The police are almost irrelevant, and the gangsters are all equally vicious and double-dealing (and all of them are perfectly willing to traffick drugs). This is not one of the great Italian polizieschi, but it's pretty fun if you like the genre in general like I do.

The first of Umberto Lenzi's Eurocrime film and went on to see several in the late 70s like The Tough Ones (1976), The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist (1977) and Brothers Till We Die (1978). This one is fine and maybe they get a bit better later. It is rather sleazy and certainly nasty but I have to say that the action gets on at the start and never stops. Antonio Sabato is a Sicilian who stars as a pimp with a massive prostitution operation while Philippe Leroy the great actor was French and gets into the action with his drugs and he is rather cool unlike Sabato is rather always shouting about. He was in a couple of gialli, The Man With Icy Eyes (1971) and Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972) also starred again and also with Lenzi. Leroy had made so many films like the splendid The Laughing Woman (1969) with Dagmar Lassander, Caliber 9 (1972) and The Night Porter (1974). Lenzi gets better with his Eurocrimes although with this one, he was in the middle of his great Gialli phase.

Along with Fernando Di Leo (and Damiano Damiani, whose films are different and more sophisticated), the great Umberto Lenzi, master of many Italian cult-genres, is the undisputed king of the Poliziotteschi/Italian Crime genre. While his 1973 mob war film "Milano Rovente" aka. "Gang War in Milan" does not reach the greatness of some of his later genre achievements (above all the masterpiece "Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Può Sparare" aka. "Almost Human"/"The Kidnap of Mary Lou" of 1974), this is yet another gritty, hard-boiled and very entertaining flick that should not be missed by genre-fans.

Milan is the setting of a brutal and merciless war between Sicilian pimps lead by Salvatore 'Toto' Cangemi (Antonio Sabato) and the French drug mafia lead by the ruthless Roger Daverty (Phillippe Leroy). When the French attempt to violently force Toto into making his prostitutes deal with heroin, his violent response leads to a chain-reaction of brutalities...

Antonio Sabato isn't one of the greatest leading-men in Italian genre-cinema (and nowhere near as charismatic as other Lenzi-regulars, such as Tomas Milian, Henry Silva or Maurizio Merli). However, the role of the tough-minded Sicilian pimp suits him well, Toto is probably the most fitting role I have seen Sabato in so far. Philippe Leroy ("Milano Calibro 9", "Femina Ridens",...) is great for sinister, sleazy and villainous roles, and he therefore fits very well in his role here. The female cast members are entirely nice to look at. The beautiful Marisa Mell is great as always in her femme fatale role, and the relatively unknown Carla Romanelli makes a beautiful and good second female lead. The supporting cast includes the usual tough-guy faces that can be seen in all of Lenzi's crime flicks (Vittorio Pinelli, Tony Raccosta, etc.) The film is not quite as action-packed as Lenzi's following Poliziotteschi, but there is enough action and grit, and a variety of brutalities (the gruesome highlights being a nasty torture scene and the brutal treatment of the prostitutes by both sides of the war). The general treatment of women in the film is as misogynist as usual for the time, country and genre. The cinematography is great as in all Lenzi films. Carlo Rustichelli's jazzy score is cool enough, but not as captivating and adrenaline evoking as the scores to later Lenzi crime flicks (by Ennio Moricone or Franco Micalizzi). The fact that everybody in the film is a dirt-bag, and the lack of a truly diabolical villain (as Tomas Milian's Giulio Sacchi in "Milano Odia"), make the suspense level little less intense. Then again, a mob war should be dirt-bags vs. dirt-bags.

Overall, "Milano Rovente" is not as essential as Lenzi's later crime-highlights "Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Può Sparare" (1974), "Roma A Mano Armata" (1976), "Napoli Violenta" (1976) or "Il Cinico, L'Infame", Il Violento" (1977). However, it is definitely a highly recommendable film to genre fans, and arguably the basis of Lenzi's later status as the king of Poliziotteschi. 7.5/10

As I said before Umberto Lenzi always pleased me with yours priceless movies, whatever the genre, in his first incursion on Poliziottesque a pejorative name gave by Italian's obtuse critics, a Sicilian gang leading by Antonio Sabato who control all Milano's circle of the prostitution, a profitable business, suddenly appears (Philippe Leroy) a high class French drugs dealer offering partnership in hard conditions, a war between them is predicable, a pressure imposed by both sides lead to an endless reprisals but shortly end up in a truce, great piece of Euro Crime, displaying the underground of the exploitation of prostitution on how they get the drugs from the Roma's supplier, in this context police department is get ready to act if has enough elements to sustain on Court house, incredible well done, meanwhile Sabato dislike to work with Lenzi who yelled frequently on acting, gorgeous girls, amoral subject, many unexpected twists, a true overview of the Milano on the seventies!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8