Gotta love this movie. It comes right at the end of the Italian crime movie phase and is probably the most violent of the lot, right up there with Ruggero Deodato's LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN. THE SMUGGLER is at times a wonderful combination of the genre, with all the usual gang dropping by from Romano Puppo and Nello Pazzafini as hitmen to Luciano Rossi as a hunchback drug taster! This flick's got it all: loads of violence, some imaginitive photography, and two of the coolest leads in history: Fabio Testi as the good guy and Marcel Bozzuffi as basically the same guy he was in THE FRENCH CONNECTION, a greasy slimeball. After all the violence and mayhem, this flick isn't exactly perfect. Where at times it rolls by smoothly, quite often the flick gets bogged down in confusing narrative and a lot of pointless characters. It's not atypical for Fulci, even if it is his only pure crime movie, complete with wanton and gratuitous gore. Faces are melted, heads are blown off, and guts are shot out of Romano Puppo's belly in glorious slow motion much like his very similar death at the end of STREET LAW.
Watch for the running in-joke with Guido Alberti (who looks no less than a million years old) flipping through channels, always skipping the crime flicks and erotic thrillers in favor of the good old Spaghetti Westerns. These scenes don't really ever fit in with the rest of the film, but it's all good fun nonetheless. Certainly Lucio Fulci is no Enzo G. Castellari or Umberto Lenzi when it comes to directing crime movies, but he injects this film with enough of his own touch that it becomes a lot of fun. Definitely not one to miss, and it certainly is a delight to learn it's finally coming to DVD.
Watch for the running in-joke with Guido Alberti (who looks no less than a million years old) flipping through channels, always skipping the crime flicks and erotic thrillers in favor of the good old Spaghetti Westerns. These scenes don't really ever fit in with the rest of the film, but it's all good fun nonetheless. Certainly Lucio Fulci is no Enzo G. Castellari or Umberto Lenzi when it comes to directing crime movies, but he injects this film with enough of his own touch that it becomes a lot of fun. Definitely not one to miss, and it certainly is a delight to learn it's finally coming to DVD.