Also known as Bloody Payroll for a pretty bloody good reason – Caiano’s tense and incredibly lean (even for) poliziotteschi, puts Elio Zamuto up against Claudio Cassinelli in what might appear to be a warm up bout before the main event, but instead manages to thrill in its own right as a fast paced, no nonsense, Euro barnstormer…
Cassinelli plays Raul “The Cat” Montalbani, a seemingly run of the mill bank robber, who looks good in a ski mask and barks out orders and demands too charming to refuse. He and his gang, including John Steiner as Fausto, a junkie weasel more interested in looting bottles of J&B from the office stash, hold up the (wait for it!) payroll department of a small firm. Whilst two of his accomplices manage to shake off the fuzz and hole up in an abandoned slaughterhouse with the money, Raul and Fausto find themselves surrounded and are drawn into a hostage situation. Commissario Foschi (Zamuto) is the cop on the case to deal with the situation and lead the subsequent cat and mouse game. But the conflict doesn’t simply involve the cops and robbers – Raul’s gang have decided to keep the money for themselves and before he can be fatally double crossed, the gang’s leader will need to fight all sides to come away with the cash and his life…
Milano Violenta offers plenty to enthuse. There is the dramatic hold up and its subsequent getaway chase which, without claiming the prestige of the best polizio car chase sequence, certainly shouldn’t feel ashamed of itself. Caiano deploys the usual low level camera work of tyres screeching round corners in pursuit, the obligatory top shots of flashing blue lights and plenty of traffic swerving to keep things suitably exciting. But there are also a few genuine nuggets thrown in for good measure. The bad guys get to crash through stacks of timber in slow motion, but it’s the rozzers who get the best bit – as, in POV, their car crunches, at speed, into the back side bumper of a parked Fiat! It may have been staged, just maybe, but it certainly doesn’t feel too choreographed and this super authentic sequence goes a long way in defining the spirit of the film as a whole.
Caiano strikes a fine balance between the sleauthy detective work at Commissario Foschi’s office and the macho double-crossing world of the bad guys and it is refreshing to see a polizio deal with such a pared down conceit – the hold up and subsequent resolution are all that really matter. A vague sub plot involving the potential romance between Raul and soppy whore Leila (Silvia Dionisio) threatens to de-rail the action briefly, but Caiano wisely, and mercifully, drops this idea almost as soon as it has been picked up. Fantastic pacing and water tight exposition keep things chugging along and it is the overall, unrelenting rhythm of Caiano’s film (along with some genuinely smart visual motifs) that give it its best asset – keeping things truly engaging from start to finish.
Cassinelli is great as the anti-hero of the film, though this perhaps has as much to do with the misplaced casting of Zamuto as the trail following good guy detective. On the subject of misplacement, special mention must be given to Gianfranco Plenizio‘s infuriatingly jazzy score, a jarring distraction to the largely industrialist Milan backdrop.
Milano Violenta is by no means the best pick of the genre and lacks the top tier casting that would bring it closer to a broader audience, but it really isn’t bad at all. With a simple and effective premise, a cracking police chase sequence and some decent performances from its main players nonetheless, Caiano’s film is good fun all the way and highly recommended to both those who admire poliziotteschi but haven’t yet got round to checking this one out, and for those making their first forays into this magnificent genre…
