Almost Human

Yet another winner from Umberto Lenzi, one of the masters of the Italian Crime movie (and there are many). For this one, he focuses mainly on the exploits of Guilio (Tomas Milian), a psychopath out for that one big score, who struggles to keep his insanity in check.

Julio's just botched a bank job by getting a bit paranoid and killing a traffic cop, and after receiving a well-deserved kicking from some gangsters, he heads off to his girlfriend's house to mooch some cash. When not getting a kicking or mooching, Guilio hangs around with his petty thief mates, preaching about a big score. After killing yet another cop while being caught stealing from a cigarette machine, Julio stumbles upon his plan – to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman and hold her for ransom. He's got two problems with this plan. The first problem is that Cop Henry Silva is on his trail ever since the murder of the cop at the cigarette machine. The second problem is that Guilio is a complete psycho and kills without thought, leaving a trail of bodies for Silva to find. Silva himself has a problem – he's a victim of the apathy and red tape of the Italian crime system and his fury grows every time he's held back from stomping all over Guilio's head. Although Almost Human is violent and sleazy, it's not as over the top as Violent Naples or The Rat, The Cynic, The Fist. Those two films had a larger cast, more car chases, and more characters to be killed off in various ways. Almost Human on the other hand is Milian's show all the way. Despite, according to the interview on my DVD, Milian being a bit full of himself, he really can act and here he displays every side of a sociopath, from a screaming murderer to a grief stricken boyfriend, to a begging, pathetic weasel (the switches in personality are really impressive). As the film concentrates almost exclusively on Milian, it's slower paced but not without it's set pieces, from Milian and his gang crashing a party, to Milian's drive with girlfriend Anita Strinberg out into the country. I'd say the title doesn't just refer to Milian, but also to Silva, who displays little emotion throughout the film, save his rage against Milian. I recommend this and all the other Lenzi crime movies I've seen: Violent Naples, The Rat, the Cynic, The Fist, and Syndicated Sadists. It's a pity he got bogged down trying to outdo Ruggero Deodato with those vile cannibal flicks, because it's with the crime genre he excelled at.

Wow, I was not expecting this one to be as good as it turned out! Possibly Umberto Lenzi's best film, Almost Human is a violent and mean-spirited Italian crime-thriller from that golden age of the 70's. Tomas Milian stars as Giulio Sacchi, a lowly thug who is despised even by his peers. Sacchi has a lot of criminal perseverance, though, and manages to come up with a kidnapping/ransom scheme that should set him and his small crew up for life. Of course, the fact that Sacchi is a mean and crazy bastard makes things difficult (and deadly) for just about everyone involved, inadvertently or not! The dedicated, stone-faced cop investigating Sacchi's reign of terror was played by Henry Silva, who did a fine job in the role. To the tune of the thumping theme by Ennio Morricone, Almost Human delivers the details and action at a strong pace, keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout. And with cool dialogue that Tarantino would love, well, this was just a very entertaining and well-made piece of Eurocrime. The new DVD from No Shame features several interview extras, the best of which being from Milian, who even at his old age manages to be a lively, funny guy.

ALMOST HUMAN is a really clever kidnap thriller. I found myself rooting for the cunning, wretched, murderous and lecherous Giulio Sacchi (played by Tomas Milan who is unrecognizable after I saw him play an earnest journalist in DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING a couple of days ago). He is a character straight out of a Jim Thompson novel.

After he botches up a bank heist, Guilio hatches a plan to kidnap a rich heiress and demand 0.5 billion as ransom. He commits a string of murders during the kidnapping and hostage taking.

One of the main features of Italian police thrillers is that they pushed the boundaries with regard to what could be put on film. Some of the stuff that the Guilo character pulls off in this film would be frowned upon today.

The film has some great writing filled with witty one liners and jokes. Hope it gets a blu ray release.

Anita Strindberg as Milan's hapless but devoted girlfriend invoked sympathy. I find it hard to take Henry Silva seriously. He is unintentionally hilarious like in Cry of a Prostitute.

(8/10)

ALMOST HUMAN (Umberto Lenzi - Italy 1974.

I had missed out far too long on Umberto Lenzi's best known crime flick, which is hands down one of the best poliziotesschi I've seen so far, almost on par with the best of Fernando Di Leo's work, together with Lenzi one of the more prolific directors within the genre. Whilst generally acknowledged to be one of the better Italian crime flicks, Lenzi's somewhat ham-fisted approach to his gialli, had made me a little reluctant to catch up with any of his other work. Although Lenzi's own VIOLENT NAPLES is also a well-made, highly effective genre entry, this one comes close to beating out that one when it comes to sheer brutality and an almost unbelievable barrage of nasty violence.

A rarity in most Italian crime thrillers, this film benefits enormously from an intriguing and woefully ambivalent central character, played with tremendous vigour by Tomas Milian, who plays Guillio Sacchi, a violent low life scumbag with no regard for human life at all and with a real penchant for torture and rape. The other side of the law is represented by stone-faced Henry Silva, who switches to playing a cop this time, instead of his usual turn as the calculating crime kingpin. The story by Ernesto Gastaldi is simplicity itself and doesn't take all kinds of distracting side-roads that make many other genre efforts so forgettable in that department. Anyway, if you're still in doubt about the merits of Italo-crime flicks, watch this one. An intriguing story, Tomas Milian in a great role and Ennio Morricone contributes another impressive soundtrack what must be one of his most recognizable scores this side from Sergio Leone. I keep wondering if the members of the Academy, who recently honoured Morricone with the honorary Oscar, had any idea what kind of films the maestro generally got involved in.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10

This was reportedly released in the U.S. in the 70's in a badly cut form and billed as a horror film.

It is clearly a CRIME film, one that focuses first on the malefactors (led by a crazed, sociopathic Tomas Milian) and only second on the pursuing detective (one mightily p****d-off Henry Silva). The version I saw, supposedly "uncut," certainly did not leave me bored. It's trashy, over the top and exploitative, expressing much the politics of a "Dirty Harry" rip-off with its emasculated cop driven to vigilante tactics and its sleazy anti-hero (Milian) who will literally stop at NOTHING, not even remorseless, cold-blooded murder, just to steal a few bucks out of a cigarette machine. But it didn't leave me bored.

Milian's riveting (as usual) performance--many complain that he exaggerates too much but I feel they're missing the point--suffers greatly due to the bad English dubbing. This is quite frustrating, since Milian speaks English and could have done it himself. The excellent Morricone score also suffers, since the music suddenly gets lowered or stops altogether every time a character speaks. But these are faults, I'm sure, of the English language version and not of the film itself.

The film itself, taken on its own terms, is entertaining as hell. Especially if you think Hell might be entertaining. Milian's character, a small-time hood named Sacchi who is determined to make it big by kidnapping a rich guy's daughter, is on a hell-bent mission. He doesn't care who he kills, tortures or rapes as long as he doesn't leave witnesses. When he's not killing, torturing and raping, he's committing brazen acts such as following the cops who are supposed to be following him and going to the police station to report his own crimes.

It's a bloody crime film that never lets up. It's set in a desperate, anarchic urban landscape where Grandma and Grandpa sell machine guns. Morricone's score adds a whole ominous dimension; the music in the opening credits just says, "Ugly things are about to happen." And they do. Just look for a version with subtitles, if you don't speak Italian.

Quentin Tarantino's mother was blowing his nose, damn straight.