Street Law

Street Law (Il Cittadino Si Ribella) (1974)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: Enzo G. Castallari

Starring: Franco Nero, Giancarlo Brete, Barbara Bach, Renzo Palmer, Nazzareno Zamperla

From: Capital Film

I am unable to fall asleep, so that is why I am posting this review now. I should be back Friday night at a more normal time. 

Ahhh yes, it's been way too long (February) since I've seen a poliziotteschi movie; they aren't always easy to track down, but that's still not a valid excuse for myself; the second half of 2016 I'll try to see a few more. Yet again, this is another thing I saw last night as at the end of the month it'll be gone from Amazon Prime. The print of this Enzo G. Castallari movie starring Franco Nero and featuring Barbara Bach looked very nice; you can't always be sure of prints for such movies on streaming services. While it's a dubbed print instead of subs, overall I can't carp.

The plot: Nero is an engineer who is in a bank; suddenly, it is robbed by a trio of robbers. They not only take his money, but they kidnap him before having to let him go after the heat from the fuzz is too hot. The cops are unable to catch the crooks so Old Franco gets real mad and he tries to get revenge. Unlike in most movies, he's not immediately successful at this task; in fact, he experiences many problems and Nero takes quite the beating throughout. In addition, several people-his lovely girlfriend Bach being the paramount example-tell him that what he's doing is not only foolish but very dangerous. He enters a wacky partnership with a low level thief and even after that... it's quite the battle between the two sides.

Despite this not always being like a typical poliziotteschi, it still belongs in the genre as in essence it is worthy of inclusion; it's quite the hard-hitting movie which has an opening where you see criminals running wild (that is a common thing in this genre), there's a nice car chase, plenty of sleaze and yeah, misogyny. An unfortunate trope with these pictures, that is true. What I'll remember most about this movie is that it tries to take a serious look at the damage vengeance can cause to a normal person and despite being improbable at times I say it succeeds at that task. It is nicely acted overall but to me Nero was the standout, a conflicted character who tries to act tough but that's only to those he can fool with his bluster. That makes it stand out compared to the typical poliziotteschi.

One last thing: I am familiar with some songs from brothers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. They made plenty of music for Italian flicks of the 70's and 80's; at times they were known as Oliver Onions. The soundtrack is very groovy; the best known song from there is Goodbye My Friend. I have no memory of it as it'd a film I'd rather like to forget about but it was in The Rock's Faster. Anyhow, I now regret not seeing this sooner.