Free Hand For A Tough Cop (Umberto Lenzi 1976) Review

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“Who would've believed it, me playing a hero? I would have been a lot happier if you'd left me in jail.” Umberto Lenzi was a skilled journeyman director, but he was perhaps at his happiest when toiling in the criminal underbelly during Italy's tumultuous 'Years of Lead' in the 1970s, with films such as The Tough Ones and The Cynic The Rat and The Fist. Brandishing a keen eye for sudden flashes of violence as well as a darkly dry sense of humour, Lenzi's Free Hand For A Tough Cop acts as a proto-buddy-cop flick, featuring a mismatched pair on opposing sides of the law as they attempt to track down a remorseless criminal in order to save the life of an innocent child...

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Flavours of the Month: December 2017...

Joe D'Amato goes Beyond The Darkness, room for improvement for The Walking Dead, and second chances are just some of what's been setting the tone of my December 2017...

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Live Like A Cop Die Like A Man (Ruggero Deodato 1976) DVD Review

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“What are we coming to when they let common criminals join the police?” Ruggero Deodato will perhaps forever be inextricably linked to his notorious grand guignol video nasty Cannibal Holocaust, but the famous Italian director tried his hands at numerous genres. He dabbled in gialli with the likes of The Washing Machine, for instance, albeit in the 1990s long after the movement's heyday in the 1970s. Indeed, three genres ruled supreme at the Italian box office – the aforementioned gialli (bloody murder mysteries), sex comedies, and crime films (generally referred to as poliziotteschi), and it is in this latter category that Deodato produced one of his finest films. Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (what a fantastic title!) is an ultra-charged poliziottescho that knows no bounds of shame, as tough-as-nails coppers take on the dangerous world of crime...

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The Nice Guys - mini review...

What's it about?
Los Angeles, 1977. A goon for hire and a bumbling Private Investigator, both with questionable morals and a streak of bad luck trailing in their wake, find themselves thrown together as they investigate a case of corporate conspiracy that spirals outwards from the death of porno star 'Misty Mountains'.
Who would I recognise in it?
Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe, Matt Bomer, Kim Basinger, Keith David.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Shane Black brings his love of L.A. and crime fiction back to the silver screen with a hefty dose of humour ladled on top. If you dug the vibe of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang then you'll know what to expect here, but with an added 1970s groove and a rowing back from the sheer self-awareness that stood so proudly at the heart of Black's last foray into noir-tinged sleuthing in the City of Angels...

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Rabid Dogs (Mario Bava, 1974) Blu-Ray/DVD Review

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“You're just crazy! Crazy and cruel!” Italy in the 1970s was a turbulent place and time, rocked by socio-political change and rife with organised crime. Drug cartels, kidnapping schemes, and young gangs left the police scrabbling to catch up and the public locking themselves away. Reacting to this period of fear, the film makers of the era unleashed a series of hard-as-nails crime pictures and hard-bitten 'poliziotteschi' films. Menacing rogue cops modelled on Dirty Harry dominated, but sometimes the violent criminals took centre stage. One example would be Umberto Lenzi's Almost Human (1974), but not to be outdone – even in the twilight of his career – Mario Bava (best known for horror films like Black Sunday or Kill Baby Kill) dived into the fray with Rabid Dogs. However, it was sucked into a nightmarish legal limbo before the low budget production had even finished. The film, which many feared to be lost forever, remained unseen for more than twenty years before, at long last, it was pulled from the ashes and given new life...

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"Celebrityville" is OUT NOW!

MY NEW BOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW!!!

Kindle eBook, Paperback, and Kindle App editions can be bought worldwide via Amazon - click here for more information - also coming soon to Smashwords!

Murder, mayhem, revenge, and a painfully public celebrity divorce - "Celebrityville" is a crime thriller with a humorous bite - won't you help a buddy out and spread the word?

"Sleb" novelisation update...

A quick update on the progress thus far with my current project - writing a Kindle eBook novelisation of my screenplay "Sleb".

Naturally, switching from one form and style of writing to another was tricky to begin with. Progress was initially slow - or perhaps it was more a case of it feeling that way. I've been able to hit my daily word count target from the get-go, which is pleasing, but at the start it was more of a struggle to get there.

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I'm writing a book...

I've mentioned a couple of times in recent weeks that I was planning a new project for the coming few months and so, without any further obtuse references to it, my new project is: adapting my screenplay "Sleb" into a novel.

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My Dear Killer (Tonino Valerii, 1972) DVD Review...

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Tonino Valerii's only venture into the world of the gialli flick is as much a poliziotteschi crime thriller as it is a bloody murder mystery. George (All The Colours of the Dark, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh) Hilton plays Inspector Luca Peretti, the cop who is (typically enough) obsessed with his latest case, which kicks off with a novel use for a dredger – decapitation – one of the films stand-out set-pieces.

As Peretti's case gets ever-more-twisted, he finds himself trapped within a complex web of deceit and a hidden truth that someone is going to murderous lengths to keep a secret. Eventually it becomes clear that at the heart of this growing pile of bodies is the missing child of a rich family, that is populated by an untrustworthy group of liars and cheats – but who is to blame and why are they resorting to cold-blooded executions?

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Almost Human (Umberto Lenzi, 1974) DVD Review...

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Umberto (Cannibal Ferox, Man From Deep River) Lenzi's brash poliziotteschi crime thriller kicks off in grand style, with a botched bank robbery that leads to a frenzied car chase filled with screaming rubber and battered metal – a sequence that best demonstrates Eugenio (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) Alabiso's tight editing. Blamed for ruining the score, Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian, Syndicate Sadists, full of twitchy energy) is introduced as an unreliable low-level hoodlum on Italy's crime-ridden streets, a man with enough chips on his shoulder to fill-out a fish supper. What's more, he's not above killing a policeman for a mere 600 lira stolen from a cigarette machine, in this film where the usual Italian glamour is replaced by uncompromising grit.

Written by Ernesto Gastaldi's (The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh), we are presented with a vision of Italy exposed as a society ruled by a totally corrupt legal system which fails to enact the basic intentions of law and order. Criminals are routinely let off the hook due to a lack of evidence, and it is with this knowledge that Giulio crafts a scheme to yield him some fat cash: half a billion lira, to be precise.

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