Almost Human (1974)

Almost Human (Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare) is a 1974 poliziottesco directed by Umberto Lenzi. This is the first of half a dozen poliziotteschi Lenzi made with star Tomas Milian. Confusingly it has been released with numerous different titles.

Milian is Giulio Sacchi, a particularly dumb hoodlum. After he almost causes a bank robbery to go wrong Giulio gets beaten up by his accomplices. He decides to strike out on his own. He’s ambitious. He’s going to pull a really really big job. He’s going to kidnap Marilù Porrino (Laura Belli), the daughter of a fabulously rich industrialist.

Giulio is ambitious but he’s too dumb and too crazy to figure out that he’s unlikely to get away with it. Especially with accomplices like Vittorio (Gino Santercole) and Carmine (Ray Lovelock). Vittorio is just dumb but Carmine is an obvious weak link - he’s young, emotional and highly strung. Once the killings start he’s not going to cope very well.

And the killings start immediately. Giulio does not intend to leave a single witness alive. Anyone who knows anything at all, no matter how insignificant, is going to be killed. Giulio has obtained three submachine-guns. They are going to get a lot of use.

Commissario Walter Grandi (Henry Silva) is a no-nonsense cop who knows his job. Giulio has left a few minor loose ends and Grandi is slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

This is certainly a violent movie. The violence is graphic and it’s doubly shocking in its remorselessness. You know that anybody who crosses Giulio’s path is going to die in a hail of machine-gun bullets.

Marilù’s father is willing to pay the ransom. Commissario Grandi has no doubts that if the ransom is paid the girl will be killed anyway. And we know right from the start that that’s what Giulio intends to do.

As you might expect things get tense between the three hoodlums but Giulio’s plan seems to be working. The trail of corpses he leaves behind provide Commissario Grandi with vital clues but no hard evidence - dead witnesses don’t talk.

Tomas Milian plays Giulio as a vicious out-of-control thug. Any attempt to give the movie a political interpretation, to see Giulio as a representative of the suffering downtrodden masses, comes up against the problem that Giulio is one of the least sympathetic protagonists in movie history. He has no redeeming features. We feel no sympathy for him whatsoever. He’s always been a loser and we want to see him keep losing. Any attempt to see neo-noir elements in the film is similarly doomed. Giulio has not been corrupted or led astray or forced into a life of crime - he is rotten all the way through right from the start. We are entirely on the side of Commissario Grandi - we want to see Giulio hunted down like an animal and killed. Milian’s performance is remarkable in its sheer excessiveness.

Ray Loveock is pretty good as Carmine. He’s a marginally more sympathetic character perhaps but while he’s a jumpy nervous killer he’s still a killer. Henry Silva gives a fairly nuanced performance - Grandi does not come across as conforming to the usual movie cop clichés.

Lenzi had the ability to make interesting movies in lots of different genres and to avoid the obvious clichés. In this case having a screenplay by the great Ernesto Gastaldi certainly helped. This is a poliziottesco but the focus is less on the cops and more on the psycho killer.

There’s a fine car chase early on and the action scenes are well-mounted and are not lacking in shock effect.

Giulio might be unintelligent but his very ruthlessness makes him a formidable problem for the police. And he does have a certain crazed cunning. They might know that he is guilty but finding actual evidence is a problem since Giulio leaves no-one alive to give evidence against him. He really doesn’t care how many people he kills. Commissario Grandi seems to be coming up against a brick wall.

The plot is basic but Almost Human has style and energy and a great deal of raw power. Highly recommended.

This movie has had countless DVD and Blu-Ray releases. Severin’s is the most recent (in their Violent Streets Umberto Lenzi boxed set) and it looks great and includes a host of extras.