Un flic hors la loi

MANHUNT IN THE CITY - not to be confused with another Italian crime film sometimes called MANHUNT and also starring Henry Silva in support - is a 1975 violent crime film directed by the inimitable Umberto Lenzi and starring Silva who goes on a ruthless revenge spree as he hunts down the gang members who shot and killed his little girl during a heist portrayed at the film's opening.

This film is very much in the mould of Lenzi's popular crime movies starring Maurizio Merli although it's not quite top-tier material. The impassive Silva ends up encountering all manner of low lives and bad guys but the futility of his vengeance is made more than apparent in the movie's downbeat scripting. Most of the time he seems to have stuff done to him rather than doing stuff to the bad guys. There's plentiful action here and a fast pace to boot, making this an effortless watch as always for the genre, but MANHUNT IN THE CITY lacks a little of the depth and the drama to make it one of the best of its type. It's perfectly watchable, just quite ordinary as these polizia movies go.

This is an Italian gangster film starring a couple Americans, Henry Silva and Woody Strode. During the 1950s-70s, Italian filmmakers often paid American actors to star in their films. The thinking was that these 'names' would bring in more fans to the films as well as make the movies marketable worldwide. The most famous of these are the so-called 'Spaghetti Westerns' but even the likes of Fellini and Visconti employed American actors. Naturally, everyone in the film was dubbed when the films were marketed abroad--and it is a bit odd to hear Silva and Strode with voices other than their own. It's also odd to see then with top billing since they are hardly in the movie.

"The Manhunt" is a revenge film and these two American actors play hit men hired to get revenge for a murder because the local cops are incompetents who couldn't care less. Along the way, there is a lot of killing, torture, violence and boobs---lots and lots and lots of gratuitous boobs. In fact, in its day it was like a merging of soft core porn and gangster films--though its nudity is very tame compared to films today. However, there is still a lot in this film that made me wince and it's NOT a film to show your kids, your mother or Father Jenkins. As for me, it was too nasty and I must admit I turned it off just before it ended, as I had just seen enough and this sort of this is NOT the sort of movie I enjoy. Plus, it's not exactly a high quality film and there are certainly MANY gangster films which are much better.

A man's daughter is killed by thieves during a bank robbery. Due to the incompetence of the corrupt authorities, he decides to take to law into his own hands and track down the killers, who seem to be a gang who sport a scorpion insignia.

This Umberto Lenzi directed poliziotteschi stars Henry Silva. Like several other Italian crime-thrillers from the mid 70's this one shows the influence of Death Wish. In it, a stony faced Silva is the equivalent of Charles Bronson. He makes his way through the entire picture in a seriously bad mood. The movie itself is extremely cynical in its view of the Italian law enforcement authorities, who are shown to be utterly useless. There is even a vigilante group who try to get Silva to go along with their way of thinking but they seem to have a somewhat heavy handed set of methods in dealing with undesirables and even Silva thinks they are a bunch of nutters that are best avoided.

Manhunt in the City is a pretty standard crime-thriller. It's mostly unremarkable but competently made nevertheless. For fans of poliziotteschi flicks it will no doubt entertain because it is essentially more of the same. Of additional note is the alternately smooth and urgent score from the reliable Bruno Nicolai, which adds some extra quality.

This is a fairly decent Italian crime movie but I was expecting something a bit more special from Umberto Lenzi. There are some good sequences, including a very good car chase and things get particularly nasty with the vigilantes but I was expecting more of a revenge movie. So when the beginning becomes rather drawn out with more and more going wrong for our hero, I imagine the eventual revenge will be that much more fierce. Doesn't really happen, we get a most depressing picture of Italy and Milan in particular mid 70s and in the end it all seems rather sad. Things are not helped by henry Silva, there is nothing really wrong with his performance but he's not the most charismatic of actors and here doesn't seem to be able to move up a gear. Music again is fine but its not Morricone.

It's not often Umberto Lenzi shows restraint, but I'm really glad that he cut away right before those mobsters shoved a huge candle up that transvestite's arse.

This poor transgender person wouldn't have suffered such a fate if it wasn't for Henry Silva, but then how was Henry supposed to know that his endless search for the guy who killed his daughter would have negative consequences? His kid gets shot during an armed robbery (for no reason either - the robbers just let a couple of bullets fly while heading out the door), and now Henry has a single clue to go on, and no faith in the Italian police.

I thought it was a bit harsh that Henry got fired from his job while grieving for his kid, but that just left Henry more time to get madder and madder while watching the country go to pot as he's harassed by bikers, sees men drool over his wife, and sees a guy stealing stuff from a street market. To be fair, he does give that guy a right good kicking. How can Henry (eventually) get to the people who killed his kid?

Turns out he has a few allies - his friend is newspaper editor Silvano Tranquilli is one, and although the cops aren't too good at finding the killers, the chief inspector tries to be as sympathetic as possible. There's also the semi-sinister vigilante group who like to smash people's hands with sledgehammers. Lenzi doesn't pull away from that so consider yourself warned.

This film is kind of like Enzo Castellari's Street Law, but not quite as good. Henry Silva always makes a great killing machine, but lacks a little of emotion as a grieving father. Plus, he isn't really let off the leash until the end of the film. I can see that Lenzi was aiming for something with a bit more characterization here, but both his and Silva's strengths lie in all out action.