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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Giulio's plan comes to fruition
when his middle class girlfriend Jona (Anita Strindberg, Who Saw Her Die?)
– who is into him as a bit of rough, yet blissfully unaware of his criminal
activities – reveals that she works with Marilú Porrino, the daughter of an
exceedingly wealthy industrialist. Teamed up with two more hoods, Giulio and
his gang kidnap Marilú for ransom – but not before Giulio's hot-headedness is
written large across the screen as they unleash their brand of violence and 'equal
opportunities for all' humiliation upon a gathering of the local bourgeoisie,
who are quickly hung like trophies from a chandelier. The splurge of sadism is
limitless, thanks to Giulio's rapidly escalating mania.
Consumed by arrogance, and a low
view of society in general (the police, journalists, youth, the rich, and
more are all derided), Giulio's teeth-gnashing irrationality and bug-eyed
ego soon threaten to transform this kidnapping into the end of them all, as
Henry Silva's hard-nosed Inspector Grandi closes in on them, following the
trail of bodies left in their wake. There's an intriguing theme underlying
Gastaldi's screenplay, too: the economics of a psychopath. Giulio, with his
fragile ego and delusions of criminal grandeur (he brags about himself as a
“genius” on multiple occasions), claims to have no care for money but is
unremittingly obsessed with it. When he's not routinely scrounging off his
employed girlfriend, he's bemoaning the earned wealth of others – wealth that,
ironically, Giulio's hostage has no interest in (but then, perhaps she can
afford to be so carefree). Giulio has no real talent, aside from his
ability to mimic emotions to suit any given moment, and his descent into
madness – born of a deadly moment of panic – is undeniably terrifying in how
easy it comes to him. Indeed, his lust for it emboldens his arrogance.
The world of Almost Human
is one of rising frustration and distrust (even disrespect) in
authority. Class war becomes a face-off between the greed and anger of the 'poor
and dirty' versus the blissful ignorance of the well off, while the justice
system stands idly by in the middle, scuppered by lawyers lacking in morals (“all
too typical of Italian law”), and politicians neutered by the malaise
afforded to them by the system. In one particularly interesting scene – where
Giulio visits an arms dealer – the criminal exchange is discussed using
religious terminology, where machine guns are referred to as “Rosaries”.
The socio-political disenfranchisement of Gastaldi's acerbic script knows no
bounds, and is given an added edge by Lenzi's steely-eyed direction and Ennio
Morricone's jagged, down-and-dirty score (conducted by Bruno Nicolai),
which is all prowling pianos and stalking saxophones.
Shameless Screen Entertainment's
32nd release arrives – as is the norm – in the original aspect ratio
(2.35:1), fully uncut, and with a decent set of extras. A half-hour
interview with Milian is the main highlight, while a Fact Track, an essay
introduction to poliziotteschi films, and a range of trailers fill out the rest
of the extras package. Transfer-wise the films looks solid – although there is
some print damage here and there, and a few fleeting snippets from lower
quality sources. However, this release does suffer in the audio department. The
Italian track is good, but the English track is troubled – with background
effects sounding like a low bandwidth internet video from the days before
broadband – you don't miss any dialogue, but a recurring echo as well as those
muddy sound effects occur at frequent junctures.
Fans of Lenzi's work, and of the
poliziotteschi genre in general, should be well catered for here. Even though
the pacing down-shifts after a blistering first 35 minutes, on the strength of
Gastaldi's biting script and Milian's crazed performance alone, you're in for a
cold-hearted treat – a slice of an Italian crime thriller with a cynical sneer.
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