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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Nightmare Beach (1988) Mini Review...

What's it about?
The leader of a biker gang is executed for the crime of murder, but when his body goes missing and rowdy Spring Breakers start turning up dead-by-electrocution, the authorities desperately try to keep a lid on things - but the bodies keep piling up.
Who would I recognise in it?
John Saxon, Michael Parks, Lance LeGault.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Directed by Umberto Lenzi (Syndicate Sadists, Eyeball) under a pseudonym, Nightmare Beach was one of his last directorial outings - into which he put little effort (as he himself admitted). Coming in after years of slasher movies, this cheap little killer flick - written by Vittorio Rambaldi (with some rushed rewrites by Umberto Lenzi) - proves to be a rather mixed bag. Indeed, just in terms of acting, the movie comes across rather schizophrenic. The ever-reliable John Saxon (A Nightmare On Elm Street) plays a sheriff doing the dirty bidding of a mayor who's only worry is not scaring off tourists (*ahem* Jaws *ahem*), while Michael Parks (Red State) plays an alcoholic doctor/pathologist/pervert, and Lance LeGault (The A-Team) gleefully hams it up as a Bible-clutching priest - all good stuff, but the rest of the acting on-show ranges wildly from under-sold to reprehensible. Mind you, in a movie like this (ideal VHS rental fodder), that's part of the fun...

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Syndicate Sadists (Umberto Lenzi, 1975) DVD Review

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“I'm not scared now that you're here.” All the boys admire Rambo (Thomas Milian, The Cynic, The Rat, and The Fist), the rogue with a scuffed heart of gold, as director Umberto Lenzi (Nightmare Beach) mashes Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy with The Godfather for this well-crafted poliziotteschi where a drifter rides in on a (steel) horse and gets entangled with two criminal gangs. Italy in the 1970s was a hotbed of headline-grabbing violence from high profile kidnappings to home-grown terrorism, and it was against this backdrop that 'Eurocrime' films dashed onto silver screens in a cacophony of squealing tires and blazing guns...

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Man From Deep River (Umberto Lenzi, 1972) DVD Review

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“He dared the forbidden river where adventure ends and hell begins!” This former 'video nasty' is regarded as the first film in the cycle of Italian cannibal movies that reared their bloody heads throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Yet Umberto Lenzi's Man From Deep River – otherwise known as Deep River Savages, Sacrifice!, or Mondo Cannibale – ironically features very little flesh eating. Instead, the film focuses more on the culture clash that comes about when a photojournalist from the western world is captured by a remote tribe somewhere in the wilds between Thailand and Burma - as 88 Films' DVD presentation inspires heated debate...

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Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (Umberto Lenzi, 1972) Review

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“Let's make a hypothesis – two dead girls and a single killer.” Umberto Lenzi (Eyeball, Oasis of Fear) traditionally kicks off his films with a quick-firing few minutes to get the audience's pulse racing, and Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is no different. A black-gloved killer driving through the night accompanied by composer Riz Ortolani's laid-back grooves, the ever-present flick knife gleaming in the moon light, a home invasion, and then the savage bludgeoning of a prostitute – Lenzi isn't one for hanging around during his opening act.

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Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi, 1975) Review

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Umberto Lenzi is best known for such violence-spewing film fare as Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox, but as a director who dipped his toe into numerous pools, some of his other work has faded into the background. Lenzi's optic-bothering giallo Eyeball is one such obscure effort.

“The flowers of death? I'm far from ready.” A bus-load of American tourists are in Barcelona to see the sights but, for some, the glint of a raised dagger will be the last image to flash across their moist little peepers. The holidaying ensemble are a motley bunch – the unhappily married Alvarados, a grandfather with his bored granddaughter Jenny, shifty-looking Reverend Bronson (George Rigaud, The Case of the Bloody Iris), letchy photographer Lisa and her lesbian muse Naiba, all leaving secretary Paulette (Martine Brochard) looking positively dull by comparison.

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Oasis of Fear (Umberto Lenzi, 1971) DVD Review...

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Umberto (Almost Human, Cannibal Ferox) Lenzi toured a variety of genres during his time as a director, bringing exuberant smash & grab style to his films. Interestingly, Oasis of Fear (aka Dirty Pictures), is a more claustrophobic and restrained effort from Lenzi when compared to some of his more famous flicks. That said, the first act is a typically Lenzi opening – all crash zooms, fast cuts, spiralling camera angles and a generally fevered pace (good work from editor Eugenio Alabiso) with a hip-swinging pop soundtrack.

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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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