This is not a cop movie. The police play no part whatsoever in the story. This is more of a lone wolf hero vigilante movie.
It begins with a mysterious stranger riding into town. He rides a motorcycle rather than a horse but this movie does have major western elements.
The stranger is Rambo (Tomas Milian) and yes the name was taken from the books on which the Sylvester Stallone movies were based. Rambo is a loner. He doesn’t like authority. His buddy Scalia (Mario Piave) works for a private police force. This was the period of Italian history known as the Years of Lead, with violent crime getting out of control and regular terrorist outrages. The idea of rich people turning to private cops rather than the official police has plenty of plausibility. Scalia wants Rambo to join up but Rambo isn’t a team player. This is the equivalent of the scene in dozens of westerns in which the hero is offered a sheriff’s badge or a deputy’s badge but turns it down.
Scalia is trying to solve a kidnapping on his own, to further his career. Milan is run by two criminal organisations, the equivalent of rival outlaw gangs in a western. There’s the Conti gang, run by a hoodlum named Conti (Luciano Catenacci), and the Paternò gang, run by old man Paternò (Joseph Cotten). Paternò is old and blind and his hot-headed son has ambitions to take over.
Rambo has no interest in the case, until something happens that gives him a personal score to settle. Now he intends to wage a one-man war against both gangs.
Vincenzo Mannino’s script is basically a grab-bag of clichés. Lenzi wasn’t enthusiastic about doing this movie and wasn’t happy with it. It’s easy to see why but Tomas Milian’s charismatic performance and the excellent action scenes more than compensate for the deficiencies of the screenplay. There are as many car and motorcycle chases as any reasonable person could wish for.
While the plot might be lacking in originality it holds together very satisfactorily and it provides the necessary excuses for the action scenes.
There’s also plenty of violence but it’s not especially graphic. Lenzi is more interested in giving the viewer an adrenalin rush than in relying on gore.
There is however a copious expenditure of small arms ammunition.
The final showdown is superbly executed and very tense and exciting.
Lenzi paces the film extremely well.
There’s no sex and no nudity. The emphasis is entirely on action and Lenzi is not going to distract us from that for a moment.
There’s no complexity to any of the characters. Rambo is just another mysterious gunslinger of the kind so familiar in westerns.
The one possible exception is old man Paternò, who has a strange and interesting attitude towards Rambo. It’s possible that Rambo is the son he’d have liked to have had, instead of the idiot son he actually has. This relationship could perhaps have been developed a bit more. Joseph Cotten has his moments in this film but he looks very old and frail. Of course that’s the point of the character, that he’s an old man losing his grip on his organisation so Cotten’s performance does actually work quite well.
Don’t expect anything profound or ground-breaking from this movie. Just sit back and enjoy the roller-coaster ride and the mayhem, and enjoy watching Tomas Milian giving a master-class in charisma.
My liking for Umberto Lenzi grows with each Lenzi film I see. Syndicate Sadists is top-notch entertainment, highly recommended.
This is one of five films in Severin’s Violent Streets Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian poliziotteschi Blu-Ray boxed set. Extras include interviews with various people involved in the film, the most interesting being the Lenzi interview. The transfer is superb. English and Italian language options are provided.
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