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Yul Brynner stars as a retired mafia hit-man who is called out of retirement to avenge his brother's death. Packing up his fishing pole in New York, he returns to Italy where he confronts the man who killed his brother and his associates, while taking on an apprentice and picking up a lady.
This film had two things working against it: most notably, horrible picture quality. If anything wasn't completely filling the screen, you couldn't always tell what it was supposed to be. This made it difficult to recognize characters, especially when we were looking at things fro ma distance. For the most part, I was able to adjust. But also, this film lacks blood. People get shot from guns with invisible bullets, to grab invisible wounds and fall as they bleed invisible blood. That's some cheap special effects! I guess the "R" rating was used for the nudity, which is nothing spectacular when the camera can't stay focused.
The story itself was decent, and a time-honored tradition in mafia films. Revenge. Maybe that plot gets old for you, but I think it worked quite well here. And the characters were alright. Someone said they weren't surprised this was Brynner's last starring role... I liked him. His apprentice was also alright and the cop was a nice touch (more on this in a moment).
One running theme I liked was the triangle between Brynner, the police and the mafia. The police knew Brynner was there to kill a man (and in fact kills several people) and in one scene the chief even has a lunch with him. The message he sends is "be careful" rather than "you're breaking the law". Now, I understand the point: mafia crime is cleaned up without the police being involved, and because Brynner's an American they can just say he escaped and not waste time on a manhunt. But I still find it hard to believe cops just let killers roam the streets.
My judgment: not a bad film, if someone would provide the labor of love to clean it up. Maybe even a remake is in order, although with all the other mafia and revenge films out there, it's not really one that would stand out. If Brynner is still alive, maybe have him in a cameo role. But seriously, if you can tolerate poor filming and like this type of thing, not a bad picture.
score 6/10
gavin6942 23 January 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1581046/ |
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20-4-2021 06:06:06