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| Images courtesy of Radiance Films |
Damiano
Damiani may well be one of the greatest Eurocrime poliziotteschi film directors
Italy has ever known and Radiance Films is right here to point nearly all of it
in our direction. From their Cosa Nostra trilogy box of films
starring Franco Nero to Goodbye &
Amen, the boutique releasing label has saw fit to publish his works for the
very first time on blu-ray disc in deluxe ornate special edition packages. Their latest venture in curating and
publishing his work here consists of the 1979 Eurocrime thriller A Man on His Knees starring none other
than The Iron Prefect (also by
Radiance) actor Giuliano Gemma and Michele Placido in one of the most
unexpected David vs. Goliath portraits of an everyman pitted against the empire
of organized crime.
Nino
Peralta (Giuliano Gemma) is an ordinary working man stationed at a food kiosk
in Rome trying to make ends meet for his family while fending off mob
extortionists when he discovers through a co-worker friend there’s a hit list
with Nino’s name on it over the kidnapping of a wealthy woman he had nothing to
do with. Moreover, he starts noticing a
well-dressed assassin named Platamona (Michele Placido) is lurking the area,
silently picking off other mobsters on the list along the way. As suspicions and tensions rise, these two
disparate characters will cross paths in an unlikely dual race to uncover the
truth and clear each other’s names before the trigger is pulled on both of
them.
A rugged
streetwise mouse taking on a cat sort of Eurocrime yarn and sociopolitical
critique of the futility of trying to take on the criminal elite entrenched in
wealth and politics, A Man on His Knees marks
another excellent turn for director Damiano Damiani in this sardonic
matter-of-fact mobster drama. Told
entirely from Nino’s perspective as an everyman with a criminal past slowly
catching up to him, trying to care for his ailing daughter and beleaguered wife
as powers from the mob afar start tightening the head screws, the film unfolds
as our anti-hero takes matters into his own hands in an effort to find the
truth. Almost upstaging him is Platamona
the hitman who gets cold feet upon pulling the trigger thus landing him in even
deeper hot waters with his superiors.
Co-written
by Nicola Badalucco and Damiano Damiani, this scenic yet gritty and rough crime
thriller told on the open streets of Rome and enclosed apartment settings in
between warehouses where murder hits are carried out is shot beautifully by La Dolce Vita cameraman Ennio
Guarnieri. The original score by Beat the Devil composer Franco Mannino
is appropriately understated if not a little funky, underscoring the aura of
omnipresent danger as Nino’s actions endanger himself and his family
further. Performances from the two
central leads are fantastic with Giuliano Gemma shedding his slick
indefatigable crime fighting aura from The
Iron Prefect for that of a scruffy criminal trying to go good only to sink
further in over his head. Equally strong
and playing off of his gruffness is Michele Placido as the would-be assassin Platamona
working his way towards trying to kill Nino only to hesitate and rethink the
gravity of the situation upon reaching his target.
Made
just a couple of years prior to his controversial English language debut film Amityville II: The Possession, Damiano
Damiani’s A Man on His Knees represents
another solid entry within the Eurocrime/Poliziotteschi subgenre and functions
as a stirring social commentary about the nature and dynamics governing the
everyman as a cog in the wheel of a mechanized criminal empire. Largely about the protagonist’s fall from
grace as he tries to clear his name by himself as friends and family get swept
up in the mob hits, the film joins Radiance Films’ prior Damiano Damiani
releases in terms of showing off the director’s best examples of genre
filmmaking in a new 4K restoration of the worldwide blu-ray disc premiere
replete with a detailed collector’s booklet and plentiful extras. Thanks to Radiance, Damiani is quickly
ascending to the top of my favorite Eurocrime filmmakers next to Enzo G.
Castellari or Umberto Lenzi.
--Andrew Kotwicki
