I never thought I'd get to see this one! Tonino Ricci injects the genre with a welcome dose of daftness, nonsensical events, and a general half- arsed approach to storytelling that he would also bring to the Rambo-rip off genre (with Days of Hell), the horror genre (Panic – the one with the mutant guinea pig) and worst of all, The Close Encounters of the Third Kind rip-off Encounters in the Deep.
This time we have Phillipe Leroy as a super-rich power boat pilot who crashes during a race (one that drags on forever as this is a Tonino Ricci film), gets some brian surgery, then comes home having forgotten just about everything about anything. Except that tree outside
that tree
there's something about that tree
the tree
something
something about the tree
that tree, plus his wife, business partner (Ivan Rassimov), potential possible mistress, and the combover guy from Sabata! Don't forget the tree as Phillipe spends an awful lot of time staring at it, and Tonino spends an awful lot of time showing us the tree from various angles.
So apart from all the times where Phillipe is staring at the tree (that tree
.something about it
) or scaring the crap out of people with his remote controlled hi-fi system, he's also got to contend with the strange phone calls from ex-employees who then show up dead instead of meeting him as planned. But who is the black-gloved killer going around killing folks and how is Phillipe supposed to recover from his surgery while all the killing is going on?
Tonino throws in a bit of everything to keep you going – a punch up, a car chase, some gore (cheap and fleeting), an arse, and a disco scene (dancing to "Yellow River" by Christie!) – these were the days where the lady would do the dancing in a mini-skirt while the man sat smoking and drinking whiskey, until the slow song came on and the guy could get up close and rub a semi on.
As you can imagine, not everyone is as friendly as they seem and things start twisting all over the place in the last half hour, including a slow motion gun-slaying which was rather good, and an ending that had me scratching my head as I was presented with a harsh "FINE" all of a sudden. Good stuff.
