zardoz-13 Review of The Violent Professionals

The Violent Professionals (1973)

An Italian Police Thriller That Lives Up to Its Title!!!

[8/10 · 13 May 2019]

French actor Luc Merenda plays a loose cannon plainclothes Milan, Italy, detective in "Torso" director Sergio Martino's "The Violent Professionals," a smoking "Dirty Harry" style cop thriller than pits our avenging hero against a crime syndicate that has tentacles of corruption deep within the local police department. Clocking in at an efficient 100 minutes, "The Violent Professionals" only twiddles its thumbs during Ernesto Gastaldi's loquacious dialogue interludes. Nevertheless, Martino compensates for all this critical exposition with plenty of exciting action scenes; a shootout aboard a train and subsequent escape, a bank heist gone wrong with a spectacular car crash after, a second bank robbery with an innocent bystander murdered, and several thoroughly unsavory villains who spout anarchistic ideology. Like Clint Eastwood's Inspector Harry Callahan, Lieutenant Giorgio Caneparo doesn't back down from anybody in his efforts to see justice served. and this well-photographed melodrama with a surprise or two is worth the effort to watch. Martino delivers a slam-bang opening action sequence that should grab your attention. Two murderous felons Casardi (Antonio Casale) and Cruciani (Luciano Rossi) are in route aboard a train to serve a life sentence in prison. Casardi insists he must urinate, and the guard escorts him to the toilet. Earlier, you suspect something awful is going to happen because the guards were dreaming about their future peaceful life after they retire. Casardi stabs the guard to death with a hidden knife. His accomplice and he arm themselves with machine guns and mow down remaining cops. Once they have shot their way off the train, they flag down a father and young daughter cruising down on the highway. They murder the father, leaving his corpse on the pavement, and commandeer the car. When the little girl whines too much, Casardi snarls at Cruciani in the back seat to silence her! Later, we see her bloody hand on a lunch box. An army of police scour the countryside for these dastards, and Lieutenant Giorgio joins them. Finally, they corner the two trigger-happy lifers and order them to dispose of their weapons. When they refuse to surrender their firearms, the temperamental Giorgio guns them down without a qualm in front of the entire search party. A journalist protests Giorgio's cold-blooded shooting, but another eye-witness defends Giorgio, "They were armed! If the lieutenant fired, it means the lieutenant had to fire." Predictably, Giorgio's police superior Vice-Commissioner DelBuono (Chris Avram of "Enter the Devil") scolds him. "You shouldn't have done that," he observes, and then assures him a suspension is inevitable. No sooner has it done so than DelBuono is himself shot down on the streets by an unknown assailant! As it turns out, a crime ring had targeted DelBuono, and Giorgio vows to exact vengeance on the criminals. He goes undercover to infiltrate the underworld. Later, Milan crime boss Padulo (Richard Conte of "The Godfather") hires Giorgio as the wheelman to drive a car during a getaway. The hand-held photography is incredibly agile as the thieves scramble out of the car and into the bank. If the senseless slaughter of the little girl in the opening scene seemed horrific, Martino follows it up with the sadistic leader of Padulo's bank robbers (Bruno Corazzari of "Ace High") emptying his machine gun into a pregnant woman before he exits the bank. Later, Padulo deplores his indiscretion in paying Giorgio to drive when the big boss summons him for a conversation. Earlier, Giorgio learned Padulo was a publisher protected by the authorities. Not long afterward, Padulo doesn't survive this encounter, and Giorgio does everything he can to maintain Padulo on life support so he can testify. Sergio Martino reunited with prolific scenarist Ernesto Gastaldi for their 1975 melodrama "Gambling City," toplining Luc Merenda again. Martino would team up with Miranda later for another cop thriller "Silent Action." For the record, Gastaldi also penned two memorable Spaghetti westerns, "Day of Anger" and "My Name is Nobody." Martino brings a vibrant sense of spontaneity to the action. If the Italians didn't invent zoom lens, they sure used them to maintain the furious pace of their films. Incidentally, "The Violent Professionals" goes by the title "Milano trema: La Polizia Vuole Giustizia" Carlo Ponti produced it, so it doesn't lack for anything. Martino's actioneer came out as a part of the police genre that featured similar sagas, such as the politically-charged "High Crime," "Rome Armed to the Teeth," "Revolver," "Flatfoot," "Violent Naples," "Gang War in Milan," "The Boss," "The Heroin Busters," "Street Law," "The Big Racket," and "Big Guns."