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Review

The Big Racket – Movie Review

  • Directed by Enzo G. Castellari
  • Starring Fabio Testi, Vincent Gardenia, Glauco Onorato, Joshua Sinclair, Orso Maria Guerrini, Renzo Palmer and Salvatore Borghese

I’d never seen a Poliziotteschi film before, but it’s a genre that I’ve become aware of due to several podcasts that cover genre/cult films, so when I decided to take the plunge it was nice to have a few leads as far as directors and actors went. This film was one I’d heard reviewed positively on at least one show, and it comes up frequently as being a well regarded example of the genre, so it seemed as good of a place to start as any.

Nico (Testi) is a police inspector building a case against the local protection rackets, following them about their daily collections, taking note of their methods and routines, looking for the higher ups to cut off the mob at the top.  He follows the foot soldiers to a meeting with Rudy (Sinclair), their boss, who looks a great deal to me like Kevin Kline with his little mustache.  Nico is spotted watching them and Rudy commands his minions to take care of him, which involves them overturning his tiny European car and sending it flipping down a hill with Nico inside!  I have to give it to Fabio Testi on this one, he looked to be getting mouthfuls of dirt and broken glass every few seconds as this car rolled again and again and it is pretty wince-inducing to watch.

Nico naturally lands in the hospital after this altercation (this being the 70’s though, he’s still able to smoke in his room so he’s cool with that…), but he instructs his right hand man Salvatore (Borghese) to keep tailing their suspects.  Once out of the hospital, Nico approaches the store-owners and businessmen under the thumb of the racketeers, hoping that even one of them will have the guts to come forward and testify, but they’re all too cowed by the criminals to get involved.  Restaurant owner Luigi (Palmer) eventually agrees to testify, but his teen daughter is kidnapped and raped by the thugs while her father is at the police station signing his complaint, further scaring the other businessmen away from helping the police.  Nico is eventually dropped from the case as the Feds move in to take over, but he continues to keep tabs on the situation, following Rudy to a meeting with a shady night club owner named Mazzarelli (Onorato), who Rudy is trying to strong arm into letting him take over his drug trade.

The battle between Mazzarelli and Rudy’s crews ends with the night club owner being run down by Rudy’s car, leaving him a broken man.  Rudy’s foot soldiers continue their reign of terror with the local businesses, this time under the guise of political outcry and their destruction is categorized as violence associated with protests rather than a criminal syndicate, muddying the waters of any case brought against them.

Nico has a chance meeting with an old criminal acquaintance named Pepe (Gardenia), who he talks into ingratiating himself with Rudy’s crew to gain some inside information, which leads to a large scale battle between the cops and the gang.  Amid the chaos of it all we meet Gianni (Guerrini), a man who is returning from a hunting trip at the nearby train station, who suddenly whips out his hunting rifle and steps in to help out the cops.  How awesome is that? I had no idea you could do this! He’s hailed as a hero in the news; you gotta love the 70’s.  The cheering quickly fades when he’s targeted by the gang for revenge, and Nico finds himself pushed further and further by the escalating violence, until he moves outside the law in his quest for justice.

I really enjoyed the film a lot, Castellari has an interesting flair with the camera, framing many shots through an item in the foreground to spice things up visually: Nico enters a room visible through the broken bottom of a canister of laundry detergent, things like that.  He also stages an interesting gun battle, of which there are several as Nico and company do battle with numerous cannon fodder in addition to the four main antagonists.

Testi reminded me a great deal of Dirty Harry-era Eastwood in this one, and he’s a charismatic figure on-screen, though I have to admit that his nemesis Rudy (which is a stunningly un-imposing name, BTW) doesn’t exactly measure up as a crime boss, but not everyone can be The Godfather, now can they?

Oh, and there’s a great scene where Pepe and Nico stage a casual meeting in public to exchange information, during which Pepe casually pretends to read from what looks like a porno mag while they surreptitiously discuss the case, it’s very bizarre.  I’m just wondering where this park is, because I’d like to avoid it and its many attendants carrying their favorite stroke mags.

All in all, this was a very watchable film, and if this is any indication of the genre itself, this won’t be the last Poliziotteschi that I check out.

Give it a rental.

Trailer

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Think Fabio Testi could take Clint Eastwood any day of the week? Let me know which Poliziotteschi I should watch next in the comment section!

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About The Author

Kingmob

Kingmob has been spending his time writing online reviews for the better part of two years and has nothing but the ability to speak about himself in the 3rd person to show for it. This review and others like it can be found at Big Suck Loser and you can read about the daily minutiae that drives him slowly mad and informs his useless opinions of pop culture at his blog, Dear Bastards.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Monday, March 15th, 2010
  • Author: Kingmob
  • Filed Under: Film,Review
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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