... And Mr. Salvator Borghese, two of my favorite, dearest character actor heroes from first the Sword & Sandal Peplum era, the Pirate Swashbuckler era, then the Spaghetti Western era, then the initial 1960's Euro War era, the Euro Horror era, the Giallo Years, the Polizi Euro Crime era, the Italian Star Wars & Giant Shark fads, Car Racing binge, Modern Italian Horror and Later Period Spaghetti Western + Italian Commando crazes, of which this film is a serviceable if uninspired example of. These guys saw it all, and if you look at lead actor Antonio Sabato's credits list you'll see basically a historical summary of the Euro Genre B movie cinema era.
Franco Fantasia earned his name originally by being the guy who taught the other stunt performers how to fight with swords without maiming each other during the Pirate Swashbucklers of 1959 - 1962. Along with his frequent comerade in arms or dueling partner Benito Steffanelli, Fantasia found himself cast into bit roles & supporting character gigs, usually as the town sheriff or other minor authority figure, usually a good guy though my favorite of his roles the gun toting, whiskey drinking, thigh-grabbing thug from 1972's MURDER MANSION. He never graduated into a leading man but usually ended up stealing all of his scenes just by being Franco Fantasia, something he pulls off marvelously here. Though he never interacts with the primary cast & likely directed his own scenes (he gets an assistant director's credit).
Sal Borghese also started out as a stunt performer who's unique face and ability to do amusing things with it caught the eye of the Peplum producers he started out working with. Salvatore was something of an acrobat and along with his frequent castmate Nick Jordan can be seen doing backflips, tap dancing and clowning around in dozens of low budget European action films like the WW2 "Dirty Dozen" clone FIVE FOR HELL, Giuliano Carmineo's later SARTANA fims, and most of the THREE SUPERMEN Italian superhero fantasies. Borghese's stereotypical Guido-ish face is usually put to comic effect and just seeing him grinning & mugging for the camera in his first scene was worth all of the crap I had to go through just to see this movie.
The director is of course Umberto Lenzi, best known in North America + Britain as a director of gross-out horror movies with lots of zombies, cannibals, and animal killings. Back at home Lenzi was more regarded as an action film director of Polizi crime thrillers. And even more importantly one of the progenitors of the Giallo sex murderer thrillers like ORGASMO and A QUIET PLACE TO KILL, which upped the ante of on screen nudity & gore from its arty beginnings at the hands of Mario Bava. Lenzi also directed one of the most effective of the Italian Euro War potboilers DESERT COMMANDOS in 1967, a thought provoking little mini-epic that also has a mini-starring role for Franco Fantasia.
I collect Sal Borghese and Franco Fantasia movies, and having them in the same one is sort of a casting dream come true even though they never have any scenes together. The bulk of the action scenes from the film were shot in the Dominican Replublic and the Suit Scenes all look to have been filmed back in Miami, where Fantasia plays the president in exile of an armpit banana republic who's annoying, insufferable son is kidnapped. He uses his muscle to have director Umberto Lenzi's favorite leading men Antonio Sabato & Ivan Rassimov, the insane Werner Pochath and Borghese (with his quiver of arrows which never gets depleted now matter how many guys he skewers) undertake a scheme remarkably similar to COMMANDO to rescue the lad. Along for the ride and to add the sex appeal is a blond actress I did not recognize, who's first appearance in the film is bent over while wearing hot pants. They blow things up, shoot a lot of people, and go through the usual plot twists, hair raising escapes, War Is Hell scenes, and obligatory Heroic Sacrifice.
While a decently enough made movie, something about the formula doesn't work well, and even in spite of a passable 80s musical score by Stelvio Cipriani. Like a Spaghetti Western or Peplum Hercules film, it's a disposable entertainment who's shelf life expired pretty much right after this Italian Commando Craze died out -- and there are much more enjoyable examples of it, Bruno Mattei's outrageous ROBOWAR being my personal favorite. At least that one had the good sense to rip off interesting movies, I never really got into COMMANDO and their attempt to capture some of that spirit is lost on me. It also goes on for about fifteen minutes too long fitted with an ending that is about the worst ever. Which isn't so much a problem as a footnote for the movie. Bad endings are par for the course.
But it has Franco Fantasia, and Sal Borghese. And its an Umberto Lenzi film with a Stevio Cipriani music score. For those reasons alone there's room for it on my shelves in some form, though recommending it to anyone other than fans of 1980s Italian Commando thrillers is pointless.
4/10
