The
first time I became familiar with the late Italian provocateur Umberto Lenzi,
who sadly left our world in 2017, was through his wildly notorious Cannibal Ferox. Dubbed the ‘most violent film ever made’ by the
American distributor and quickly branded in the UK as a ‘video nasty’, the
controversy engendered by his film for a while was all most American filmgoers
knew of the diverse jack of all trades whose talents extended to screenwriting
and writing novels. Credited as the
first man to direct an Italian cannibal film with Man from the Deep River, his untimely death generated renewed
interest in his life’s work and soon many of his long sought-after pictures
began resurfacing in deluxe special editions including his zombie apocalypse
freak out Nightmare City.
What
I was unaware of, however, was where the prolific writer-director’s true
vocation lied. Though he often directed
giallo, erotic thrillers and pictures for the spy genre, I quickly learned with
Grindhouse Releasing’s limited-edition reissue of The Tough Ones his true calling was the Poliziotteschi film. Poliziotteschi, or police-related film (Euro-crime
and Italo-Crime also apply), generally concerned a brutally violent hard-boiled
cop thriller heavy on action including but not limited to car chases, rogue policemen
fighting an uphill battle against a politically correct by-the-book police
system and generally labyrinthine detective story.
Though
this wasn’t my first Poliziotteschi film, with The Suspicious Death of a Minor neatly treading a fine line between
poliziotteschi and giallo, this was the first time seeing Lenzi’s work in the
genre. To say that he excelled at the
Poliziotteschi picture with The Tough
Ones being among the best examples of the genre would be putting it mildly. Though Lenzi was no stranger to the genre,
having directed a wealth of them throughout the 1970s, it is The Tough Ones which many consider to be
his masterpiece of the genre.
Starring
poliziotteschi regular Maurizio Merli (Fear
in the City; Violent Rome), The Tough
Ones is a sharp-edged, intensely violent and ultimately compelling cop
thriller concerning Commissioner Tanzi (Merli), a tough cop tailing a hunchbacked
criminal named Vincenzo Moretto (Tomas Milian) who operates as a butcher by day
before becoming a ruthless crimelord at night.
Seemingly every recent string of robberies, rapes and murders in Rome
are tied to Moretto and Commissioner Tanzi will stop at nothing to bring him to
justice, even if the justice system itself repeatedly sandbags his attempts.
Written
by frequent Lucio Fulci collaborator Dardano Sacchetti and scored by poliziotteschi
regular Franco Micalizzi, The Tough Ones is
a shining example of pure cinematic craftsmanship. Exciting, shocking, thrilling and wildly
entertaining, the film was originally born out of a director-for-hire task
presented to Lenzi in the form of a script called Rome Has a Secret. Deeming
it nonsensical and junking the script, Lenzi with Sacchetti approached
producers Mino Loy and Luciano Martino (brother to the great Sergio Martino)
with the idea of making a poliziotteschi about widespread violence brewing
through Rome and within a week Lenzi and Sacchetti turned over The Tough Ones.
Originally
released in Europe under the title Rome
Armed to the Teeth before being censored for American release with newly added
shots of New York City with the title Brutal
Justice followed by a second reedit with the title Assault with a Deadly Weapon, The
Tough Ones remained unavailable to foreign consumers in its original
Italian form until now thanks to Grindhouse Releasing. Seen now after his aforementioned cannibal
and zombie features, The Tough Ones displays
the late director’s true passion for and mastery of the poliziotteschi genre
and remains one of the most intense action-packed crime thrillers to ever come
out of Italy in the 1970s! If you were
to ask what exactly a poliziotteschi film is, look no further than The Tough Ones!
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki