Violent City

Violent City (Citta Violenta) (1970)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: Sergio Sollima

Starring: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Michel Constantin, Umberto Orsini, Telly Savalas

From: A few different companies

This was undoubtedly a 70’s Italian genre movie. I say that for a few reasons; one I’ll mention now is that the protagonist played by Charles Bronson is not one you should root for. He is a hitman who does some questionable at best things w/ women, and the movie in general is rather pessimistic… why exactly, that won’t be revealed. 

The movie starts off excellently: in an 11 ½ minute intro where only one word is spoken, we see Bronson w/ his paramour Jill Ireland (but of course) who are in the Virgin Islands, having a good time. Suddenly, they are in a gnarly car chase (choreographed by Remy Julienne, meaning it was aces) and it includes in a fiery fashion. He is turned against by two people, and even after Bronson is jailed, he is monomaniacal in his hunt for revenge. Telly Savalas has high billing in the cast, but he doesn’t show up for almost an hour.

That may be a sign of how uneven the movie can be at times. Some moments I did not love but others I do rate highly due to successfully pulling off suspense in key moments; there is another long wordless stretch, after all. At least it did intrigue by featuring plenty of locations in the United States after the first 20 minutes-including Louisiana-and a key sequence was at the Michigan International Speedway, where a Can-Am race was held. Briefly, Stirling Moss was shown; that was mentioned for the UK readers.

The typical quality Morricone score and several surprises were other nice assets in making this downbeat film rather entertaining.