Director : Giacomo Battiatto
producer : Alessandro Fracassi for Racing pictures
An elderly Sicilian-American businessman is kidnapped by the mob,
and to get him back alive, his son Julian must travel to Sicily and assassinate an honest judge who is a relative of theirs. ChaosD, 06-05-2001
What a fun movie this was! It's got everything; sex, violence, scandal in the family, drownings, explosions,
poisonings, and... Ah yes, huge amounts of white powder into you know who's aristocratic nose.
Julian Salinas (Brad Davis) is new to the ruthless games played by the crime families but he is tough and scrappy
and a fast learner. He is expected to befriend Judge Salinas (Tony Lo Bianco), who is very, very well protected and then, execute him.
At first, he does as he is told, but, soon he gets in cahoots with the judge and begins to give all kinds of trouble to
the young drug-lord, Marc Ciuni (Vincent Spano) who masterminded the kidnapping. With his dad's life hanging in the balance,
he cannot get the advantage in this game of cat and mouse, but when the old gentleman turns up dead, all bets are off and he
becomes the hunter.
Mr Spano really rocks and rolls as Marc Ciuni, a cocky, strung-up, ravenously ambitious crime boss risen from the ranks.
He has returned to Palermo to assassinate a judge, but also to settle a few scores with the sicilian old guard.
Top of his list is beautiful Caterina (Maria Conchita Alonso) whom he once loved, and who was married off by her
powerful father to a man with a better family lineage. Ciuni does not take rejection well. First chance he gets, he reclaims the lady
for himself, and if you know sicilians like I do, you can guess that this means war.
Now he has , not only Julian Salinas to worry about, but also , his once allies who have turned against him, and, it
doesn't help much that his cocaine use is rising to a fevered pitch.
Toward the end, wounded, beaten, trembling with his circuits fried from so much dope, he is still bold as brass and
wont give up. "I haven't lost," he says, "No, not yet." He will go down with all guns blazing, while in the room upstairs, Caterina
cries softly over her lover's death.
It happens sometimes in films that the bad guy is more affecting than the hero, and it is the case here.
Tony LoBianco is low key and effective; he has a great on-screen rapport with Vincent , but they only have one scene
together, and that's too bad.
Brad Davis looks, I'm sorry to say, bored; even if we realize that his character has a lot on his mind. Something is
missing there, and Vincent dominates; his tantrum throwing bad boy grabs the attention and even a fair slice of the sympathy,
(yeah, so, I'm biaised, what you gonna do?)
I mean, all morality set aside, it is enjoyable to see this kind of energy.
Maria Conchita Alonso has the role of a fierce woman, hidding beneath the purrs and guiles of a capricious sex
kitten driven a little cooky by her frustrated desires. When Marc is wounded in a hit ordered by her father and husband, she
appears at the family dinner wearing a white dress decorated at the waist (the same exact place where Marc was shot) with
a large red flower. She serves the menfolks some of her famous home made osso bucco, laced with deadly poison. I thought
to myself : "How campy, how delectable!" Once again, not very moral, but fun.
This film delivers. We visit a world brutal and cold where human life is a commodity to be bartered or taken whenever
convenient, nobody really cares. The Sicilian scenery frames it effectively, it is beautiful and arid, somewhat ominous. The
architecture is gorgeous and crumbling, these old walls have stood a long time; like a certain way of doing things: They endure.