Only now does it occur to me... THE BIG RACKET (1976)

Only now does it occur to me... that it's been way too long since I've watched an Enzo G. Castellari film. It's a certain, unique strand of plagiaristic Italo-madness inflected with the pure joy of visual storytelling, á la Sam Raimi or Richard Rush. About fifteen years ago, I first watched a spate of his classicks: 1990: BRONX WARRIORS, THE LAST SHARK, THE HEROIN BUSTERS, KEOMA, TUAREG: THE DESERT WARRIOR, INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, et al., a series of films which rip off and then reinvent everything from JAWS to THE WARRIORS to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA to THE DIRTY DOZEN.

After all these years, I finally took a stab at THE BIG RACKET, which is a reinvention of the original DEATH WISH with enough Roman derangement so as to prophesy the swirly-eyed Cannon Films sequels.

The plot is thus: a gang full of models and character actors destroy bowling shirts and flowers with ball bats. This represents Italian crime in the 1970s.

 

What do they want? Protection money from local business owners.



They're part of a huge operation that goes all the way to the top––a smarmy mobster played by Joshua Sinclair's "Rudy." (He's a member of Castellari's acting troupe who almost always plays a gleefully pompous baddie, and––no joke––he's also a medical doctor and expert in tropical diseases who worked with Mother Teresa.)

But there's one man who will not allow this to happen. A likable man who wears a lot of denim and looks disapprovingly upon property destruction

and spilt sugar.

That's right, it's one tuff cop played by the one and only Fabio Testi. I've referred to him in the past as "Italo-Rock Hudson" and "Eurotrash Hugh Jackman." When he fires his weapon in top-to-bottom, skintight, cinched denim, you had best believe that he's doing a back-strengthening Superman extension as he does it. That's just standard Testi operating procedure.

Most of this movie is glass being broken in slow motion or Peckinpah-style bullet ballet featuring folks in close-fitting bell bottoms set to the wacka wacka beats of De Angelis, basically a nonstop bassline cribbed from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and some random psychedelic guitar tinkering. Or else it's criminal organizations meeting up and sitting around and flashing their eyes at each other and posing while jazz drum solos riff unto infinity (just like in 1990: BRONX WARRIORS). There's a fair amount of ickiness, too, like the comically fascist pro-police agenda and "fridging" tropes and multiple gang rapes, which mainly seem to be in here because Castellari genuinely believes he is making a contribution to the same contemporary ultraviolent subgenre as A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, DELIVERANCE, STRAW DOGS, DIRTY HARRY, and DEATH WISH. In fact, he's making a live action cartoon with some of the best-worst dialogue in his entire canon.

"Holy jumpin' jackrabbits, somebody took a strong dislike to the decor in here!"

 

 "Well look at that, we've got a plainclothes peeping pig in our window!"

"There we were having a couple of quiet beers and these guys arrive and just start beating the bean bags out of us!"

 

"I think I better warn you, if I find one bedbug, you will see me for dust."

"We can't offer them protection 24 hours out of 24."

There's excessive use of the word "diddly." Sometimes it's used to mean "diddly shit/squat," and sometimes the uses are, shall we say, even more imaginative.

"Yeah, you're right, but, uh, but if they cooperate with us, they'll be up diddly creek."

"Pull yourself together before you drop us both into the diddly."

–"If we're gonna get into the diddly, I'm gonna make sure it's because we really earned the right to be in it."

There are moments of the sublime, like when a gang member is pouring kerosene on a small restauranteur's dining room and says, flatly,

"Pity we ain't got some chestnuts to put on this."

"Ya mucker" is a common insult in the world of THE BIG RACKET, and sometimes gang members make spirited and hilariously weird commentary on the beatings they're administering:

"Ah sure, a sizzling face stinger... topped off with a rear-over-headlight turnover!"

All of this is too much for Good Cop Pushed Too Far™ Fabio Testi, who must break the law in order to enforce it.

"Criminal methods, in this case, were necessary. I know my methods are, let's say, somewhat illegal, but if the results are right, don't they justify the means?"

Because Castellari loves a "men on a mission" movie more than anything else, a now suspended-from-the-force Testi recruits a band of avengers to take out the mob, PUNISHER style. He enlists a thief-buddy (Vincent Gardenia––two-time Oscar nominee, DEATH WISH and MOONSTRUCK cast member, and "Mushnik" in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS)

and other roughnecks to join his "let's say, somewhat illegal" crusade. Along the way, there are darkly comic and socially dangerous vigilante fantasies, like an Olympic skeet shooter being present (by happenstance!) when hero cops are pinned down by a literal army of mobsters. He proceeds to take out half the army while never being mistaken by the cops as a gang member. Holy jumpin' jackrabbits.

Anyway, the film's politics (described by Morando Morandini in Il Giorno as "a fascist film, a vile film, an idiot film"––and he's not wrong!) somehow can't fully drop this film "into the diddly," so to speak, and distract from its glorious, era-defining kitsch and denim-related achievements.

Film Review: 1990- THE BRONX WARRIORS (1982, Enzo G. Castellari)

Stars: 5 of 5. Running Time: 97 minutes. Tag-line: "In the year 1990, the Bronx is officially declared No Man's Land. The authorities give up all attempts to restore law and order. From then on, the area is ruled by the Riders." Notable Cast or Crew: Mark Gregory (THUNDER, JUST A DAMNED SOLDIER), Fred Williamson (INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, VIGILANTE), Vic Morrow (BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, THE LAST SHARK), Christopher Connelly (BENJI, MANHATTAN BABY), Joshua Sinclair (KEOMA, THE LAST SHARK), Ennio Girolami (TENEBRE, LIGHT BLAST), Stefania Girolami Goodwin (Castellari's daughter- also in HEROIN BUSTERS, SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS), George Eastman (BLASTFIGHTER, THE NEW BARBARIANS). Music by Walter Rizzati (HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY, THUNDER 2). Cinematography by Sergio Salvati (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, GHOULIES II, CONTRABAND). Best one-liner: "You fuck! It could be a pile of shit out of someone's asshole!" 

 

 Somebody lends Italy their copy of THE WARRIORS, and this is what happens. 

 

Now 1990 was a rough time to be in the Bronx. There was this guy, Trash, who led the toughest gang. 

 

Everybody knew they were the toughest because whenever they parked their motorcycles, they did it in a 'W' formation.

  

Trash looked like he'd be more at home go-go dancing in a club cage, and his jeans were so tight you could see his asscrack through them, but he was the toughest. Then "the richest girl in the world" wandered uptown, shacked up with Trash, and a major shitstorm broke loose. That's the main drive of this movie, but that's not why you're watching it. You're watching it for spit-take inducing lines like "Just keep talkin' f*gface, and I'll tear your fockin' lid off!" or "The bird has flown the coop, and Little Red Riding Hood was caught by the big bad seven dwarves." Let those sink in for a minute. I love this movie. I love that a gang member plays a drum solo on the banks of the East River for ten minutes while every member of a 50 man brigade gets his own reaction shot. 

 

I love that there's a CABARET inspired tap-dancing gang, complete with swords, metal derbies, and synchronized fight choreography.

  

I love that the SWAT van is clearly a re-painted Mr. Softee truck. I love that in the funeral scene, everyone throws a handful of ashes into the East River, which immediately blow back into their faces, and they didn't redo the shot. I love that all the views of Manhattan clearly reveal that this was filmed on Roosevelt Island. I love that funky soundtrack, full o' big bouncy basses and reverb-heavy high-hat action. I love all the odd references to gray matter, reflecting idioms that don't exist in English ("Would you mind asking Blade to put his gray matter in motion?", "You gotta be kiddin'––you got your gray matter in your butt!"). I love insults like "Pisshead!" and character names like 'Hot Dog' and 'Witch.' I love that there's a character named 'The Hammer' NOT played by Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson. 

 

The Hammer plays The Ogre. 

This is about as good as it gets, ladies and gentlemen. To reveal too much more would be a sin. And be sure check out the sequel (with Henry Silva!), ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX. Five skull-glowin', roller-skatin', high-hattin' stars (in a 'W' formation).

 -Sean Gill 

 

 

Junta Juleil's Summer '10 Movie Series 

 1. HELL IN THE PACIFIC (1968, John Boorman) 

 

2. KUFFS (1992, Bruce A. Evans)  

 

3. THE OUTFIT (1973, John Flynn)

 

4. FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY (1981, Eddie Nicart)

5. A*P*E (1976, Paul Leder)

6. BLIND FURY (1989, Philip Noyce) 

7. HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951, John Farrow) 

8. HIGH SCHOOL U.S.A. (1983, Rod Amateau) 

9. DR. JEKYLL AND MS. HYDE (1995, David Price) 

10. MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997, Clint Eastwood) 

11. 1990: BRONX WARRIORS (1982, Enzo G. Castellari) 

12. ...

Film Review: KELLY'S HEROES (1970, Brian G. Hutton)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 144 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Clint Eastwood, Carroll O'Connor, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland, Harry Dean Stanton. Music by Lalo Schifrin.
Tag-lines: "Never have so few taken so many for so much."
Best one-liner: "Take that underwear off your head, enh? Enough is enough."

KELLY'S HEROES combines the 'men on a mission' action drama (THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, THE DIRTY DOZEN) with the ensemble comedy (IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD) and a touch of the spaghetti western (THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY), and the results are, surprisingly, excellent. Director Brian G. Hutton (who had directed Clint in his other WWII movie, WHERE EAGLES DARE, two years prior), writer Troy Kennedy-Martin (THE ITALIAN JOB), and the eclectic cast maintain this difficult balance well, never letting the proceedings get too goofy or, conversely, too serious. The perpetually scowling Clint and the super-pissy Telly Savalas are our straight men, the stressed-out Don Rickles and the screwy 1940's hippie Donald Sutherland are our goofs, and the possibly drunken Harry Dean Stanton and the pompous Carroll O' Connor lay somewhere in between. Basically, it's the DIRTY DOZEN with slackers instead of convicts. And these guys, especially Sutherland, are lazy as shit. They make Beetle Bailey look industrious and the soldiers in THREE KINGS (loosely based on KELLY'S HEROES) look like candidates for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

As Sutherland's "Can you dig it?" hippie gleefully attests, the filmmakers' primary aim is not historical accuracy. There's even a ridiculous Lalo Schifrin-composed anthem named "Burning Bridges" that plays throughout, conjuring imagery of 70's TV shows more readily than that of Operation Overlord. (Clint even recorded a .45 of this theme song!)

Schifrin's music at times is facetiously Morricone-esque, and many sequences are given an Italian Western flavor, recalling the "Spaghetti War Films" that began to pop up in the late 60's, like Enzo Castellari's EAGLES OVER LONDON, Mino Loy's DESERT ASSAULT, or Alberto de Martino's DIRTY HEROES. Of course, none of those would exist without DIRTY DOZEN, but that's just the ouroboros of filmic influences continually rearing it's (tail-eating) head. Four gold brickin' stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE HEROIN BUSTERS (1977, Enzo G. Castellari)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 132 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Music by Goblin. Starring Fabio Testi, David Hemmings, Joshua Sinclair.
Tag-lines: "FABIO TESTI."
Best one-liner: See review.

"I'm gonna put a bullet in your assshole!" Yeah, you are. Enzo Castellari strikes again with bad dubbing; idioms that don't exist in English ("It's like having fleas- but these fleas BITE!"); head-scratching plot twists; and tight, TIGHT jeans. You know, I've not yet seen a Castellari film that I was disappointed with. Each time I go in with the expectation of purely ironic thrills (which I certainly get), but end up leaving with a mostly sincere appreciation of what I've just seen. He may use a laughable amount of reaction shots, have unexplained lesbian dream sequences, and frame a lot of shots with asscrack in the foreground, but damned if he isn't a good filmmaker. His action scenes have a certain 'poor man's Peckinpah' intensity to them, and he manages to capture the 'Howard Hawks via John Carpenter' dynamic of buddy-bonding (usually peppered with spit-take inducing homoerotic undertones).

But anyway, on to THE HEROIN BUSTERS: we have the awesome David Hemmings (BLOW-UP, DEEP RED) as a likable, baby-faced Interpol agent who is always smacking the shit out of people and swearing,

Hemmings shows Testi who's the boss. Note the map in the background: "Ah yes there are drugs in these cities. And if you connect them with yarn, it looks something like THIS."

Fabio Testi (the 1970's Italian Hugh Jackman) wearing a tight denim outfit tucked into boots and held together by a red cloth which I guess is a belt, fantastic stuntwork, and a 'Battle of the Cessnas' finale.

Fabio Testi walks into a room and people just start getting intimidated.


"Next time bring your daddies." Note the makeshift belt.

This movie is epic. There's a montage of the drug trade in 5 international cities in just 5 minutes.

Hi-tech crime-busting equipment of incredible sophistication.

And it's all set to the rockin' "Italo Disco meets Led Zeppelin" riffs of GOBLIN. And when this movie's in doubt, it shows one of two things: thugs punching or junkies shooting up. Somebody does some smack. Who is this person? It doesn't matter, cause six dudes just busted in and are whaling on him.

Who are they? It doesn't matter, cause now we're in a different city where the same thing is happening, but to a new guitar riff. Yeah. That's what this movie is all about. Four stars. Keep 'em in that secret boot-heel panel where you hide all your best H.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: KEOMA (1976, Enzo G. Castellari)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 105 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Franco Nero (Nero is legendary: he's worked with Fassbinder, Bunuel, Castellari, and John Huston; he's played Jesus, Valentino, Versace, Django, and Lancelot!), Woody Strode (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, SPARTACUS, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE), William Berger (VON RYAN'S EXPRESS, DJANGO 2), De Angelis (soundtrack, THE LAST SHARK), Donald O'Brian (TROLL 3: QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD, INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN).
Tag-lines: None!
Best one-liner: "The world keeps going around and around. So you always end up in the same place."

Along with Sergio Corbucci's THE GREAT SILENCE, KEOMA is probably the best of the non-Leone spaghetti westerns. Enzo G. Castellari's not a mere rip-off artist; he's a true disciple of Leone's films (and of Peckinpah's), and he brings many more elements to the table: like EL TOPO, this western is mystical, philosophical, and vaguely psychedelic; like Argento's contributions to ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (and his best giallos), the myriad flashbacks have a hazy, magical quality to them that is distinctly Italian; and, unlike most second-tier spaghettis, KEOMA's characters talk about their feelings (!) and the film possesses real emotional stakes.

I shit you not; the line being spoken right here is "You never gave us the affection you gave to him... And we were your real sons!"

In the midst of all of this is a barechested, grimy, hairy, and grizzled Franco Nero- his intense blue eyes and severe demeanor anchoring the film's disparate elements.


I hear a lot of complaining about the De Angelis soundtrack, but it has a purpose- it's a primal ballad, full of vocal shrieks and screeches that may not always be pleasing to the ear, but they certainly go a long way toward forming the bleak, savage atmosphere. Castellari's visual sense is at its peak in this film:

we're entreated to the POV of a target as it's shot at- large holes of light tearing themselves out of the screen;

the POV of Keoma's hand as he counts off the bad guys he's about to gun down;

and majestic slow motion as men are shot, punched, and thrown by the hair, their bodies plummeting into mud-entrenched puddles and engulfed by wisps of dust and sand.

There's a few classic Castellari moments, like the line "Ya overgrown papoose!" and more odd Italian references and depictions of gratuitous pissing (see also: TROLL 2, MONSTER DOG, etc.), but for the most part, this is a very serious film.


Classic obligatory Italian pissing scene. The man pictured above literally begins pissing on command onto Woody Strode's boots.


And check out this guy! (Joshua Sinclair.) Smug assholes abound in Castellari flicks.


But toss in the stern pathos of Woody Strode (pictured above), the complex family dynamics between biological and adopted sons, and a genuine thoughtfulness throughout (which is so rare in a film of this type), and KEOMA is truly a classic. Viva Castellari!

-Sean Gill