Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely brilliant

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Dear Fernado Di Leo, I had a tough time keeping track of all the plot twists. There were so many of them. But it was an entertaining film at the end of the day. You lack the finesse of Elio Petri or Melville. But it is OK. A lot of filmmakers would kill to make a film like this.You did assemble a cast of real bad asses.Gastone Moschin - well, I'll just say he was an odd choice for a leading man. Its not like he was bad or anything. But he would have been better off as one of the gangsters who get shot.Barbara Bouchet was sexy as hell.The exchanges between the capitalist and the communist police officers was interesting. That was your own stamp on the film.The scene at the beginning was terrific. You used the background score to great effect. Though I did not like how it suddenly turns into a rock n roll tune.I will check out more of your films.Loved the background score by LUIS BACALOV, the over the top acting by MARIO ADORF, complicated plot and the nude ravishing cabaret dancing BARBARA BOUCHET. i also realized that GASTONE MOCHIN, the dour hero acted as fanucci in GODFATHER 2.this is like an over the top version of JEAN PIERRE MELVILLE movie. there are a lot of similar themes and tropes. honor and friendship between gangsters. philosophizing police officers. women used as objects of sex. the violence is almost caricaturish. the first 15 minutes of the film is fucking outrageous. strongly recommend it. Best Regards, Pimpin.(9/10)

Director Fernando Di Leo comes up trumps once more with this excellent Italian gangster movie, blessed with an unusual and tricksy plot which is always unfolding and totally unpredictable from start to finish. Whilst the plot is different to the rest of the Italian 'polizia' type crime films, I'm pleased to say that all the genre elements that fans know and love - the music, the characters, the action - are present and correct. Snappy dialogue is mixed in with some fine action set-pieces, including an incredible extended shoot-out in a garden which has to be seen to be believed and probably inspired John Woo's action movies.Strumming guitars make up the lively score which nicely complements the on screen activities. The opening five minutes of this film are simply spectacular, breathtaking, with stylish camera-work and Di Leo's trademark explicit violence involving a woman being savagely beaten and a victim having an unfortunate close shave in a barber's shop. The film that follows is utterly involving and has great casting in form of the leading character, Hugo Piazza, as played by Gastone Moschin. Lacking the youthful good looks that Luc Merenda and Franco Nero brought to their own particular crime films, Moschin is a revelation here and miles away from his mannered bumbling policeman character in the comedy/giallo THE WEEKEND MURDERS. Playing his role understated and subdued, Moschin scores a hit with his realistic and sympathetic character, a kind of mysterious anti-hero you never learn too much about. A great and unusual leading role and one that pays off.The film involves Moschin's fortunes as he finds himself being harassed by some greasy Italian Mafia types. After his tough friend Kino beats them off, Moschin rests easy but it's not long before he has to go and face up to the godfather, played by the ancient Lionel Stander. Stander decides to re-employ Moschin to keep an eye on him, despite the fact that he suspects him of stealing 300,000 dollars in loot. This part is never explained fully but it doesn't matter. From then on, Moschin must go about setting up dangerous drug deals and cold-blooded murders until it all predictably falls apart. The last twenty minutes of this movie are tremendously exciting and end with a couple of unforeseeable twist endings that knocked my socks off.The cast is full of Italian faces familiar to any genre fans. The love interest is played by the welcome Barbara Bouchet, whose finest moment is when she gyrates in a bikini in a sleazy nightclub - the camera is there to follow every trace and curve of her body for the viewer's appreciation. Genre regulars Frank Wolff and Luigi Pistilli lend solid support as policeman and hit-man respectively and scumbag Bruno Corazzari is great as an unfortunate Mafia aide. Best of all, however, is Mario Adorf in a supporting role as psychotic gangster Rocco. Adorf would go on to star in Di Leo's MANHUNT(incidentally a movie that's just as good as this one) but he's just as good here playing the total opposite of his later character, a stressed-out, Joe Pesci type who enjoys torturing people and keeps breaking down. A great role and a nice character twist at the end there for him too.Genre fans looking for a nice bit of GODFATHER-inspired action will find much to love about this movie. Di Leo's trademark explicit violence is present in some cold-blooded murder scenes including a guy getting bumped in the bog and even the ruthless drive-by shooting of a blind man! The ending is classic stuff and as a whole the film is totally successful with only minor flaws that are easy to ignore. Another Italian classic and a film to be tracked down.

Ugo Piazza (Moschin) has just gotten out of jail. All he wants to do is reconnect with old flame Nelly (Bouchet) but some gangsters are making his life a lot more miserable than it already is. They are convinced Ugo has $300,000 stashed away somewhere, and they intend on harassing him until he forks it over. Rocco (Adorf) keeps pushing Ugo, and at the top of the ladder is a sinister crime lord known only as "The Americano" (Stander). Ugo goes to visit his old friend Chino (Leroy) for help - and now Chino is involved in the whole mess. Not just with gangsters, but with the local cops as well. Luckily, the Police Commissioner (Wolff) and an idealistic cop named Mercuri (Pistilli) are constantly engaged in a back-and-forth dialogue about left wing and right wing issues. But does Ugo actually have the money? And if so, will he make it out of this treacherous situation? Milano Calibro 9 (or just Caliber 9 to us Americans) is another excellent Fernando Di Leo movie. It's beautifully shot and edited, and the plot is always engaging and intriguing. From the killer opening on down, this movie more than delivers the goods in the entertainment department. And although the plot may seem simple, there's a lot of food for thought as well. That seems to be a tricky thing to pull off, but Di Leo does it and we all benefit.Set in Milan (hence the Italian title), we are immediately thrown into a dangerous world. But it's a beautiful world on the surface, and nowhere better is this symbolized than by Barbara Bouchet's character, Nelly. Her beauty is overwhelming, and even her apartment is dazzling. But just below the surface is violence and instability. Gastone Moschin plays Ugo perfectly, in a very stoic manner. He has a great face, and if this movie was remade today (which hopefully it won't be), Jason Statham could play the Ugo role.Stylistically, this movie is ahead of its time and is strikingly modern. Sure, it may be a world of rotary phones, typewriters and cops who drink and smoke pipes at the station (which is fascinating to modern eyes because it represents a time long past, never to return), but on a technical level, this movie could have come out this year. Di Leo masterfully brings technical expertise together with quality writing and performances and naturally a winner of a movie emerges. Not a lot of directors can achieve what he achieves and that's a testament to his talent. And the music! The music is beyond awesome. As if getting the genius Bacalov wasn't enough, he also brought on board the great band Osanna (for those who don't know, they're a big name in the Italian prog community). Di Leo was a fan of the album Bacalov did with The New Trolls, and fans will note that parts of the great album "Concerto Grosso" are used in the background as well. We can't speak highly enough of the music in this movie. It truly puts the icing on an already-excellent cake.

An ex-con attempts to go straight but cannot escape the influence of his old crime bosses. Underpinning everything is the matter of a missing $300,000 that he is under suspicion of stealing. The mob and the police want him to reveal all, while he protests his innocence.Milan Calibre 9 is one of crime specialist director Fernando Di Leo's most famous movies. He was probably the best director in the Italian poliziotteschi and is responsible for several other classics of that sub-genre, such as The Boss and The Italian Connection. Like those, this one is also a fast paced, tough and violent flick with some excellently staged action scenes. The big shoot-out at the outdoor garden party stands out as an example of the latter. But mainly the story is driven more by interesting characters and a fairly complex plot with several twists and turns.The Milan setting itself is used well, with a good sense of place. Unlike the other Italian thriller genre of the 70's, the giallo, the poliziotteschi were virtually all set in Italy itself. Many, like this one, featured the city in question in their title. They were more realistic than their more stylised gialli counterparts and I guess they connected with their audience in a slightly different way in that they provided thrills along with observations about contemporary crime concerns. Milan Calibre 9 like other Di Leo crime films has some such social commentary. The corruption in the justice system and the degradation of the mafia are subjects that are touched upon.It benefits from a very strong cast. Mario Adorf is in his element as the sadistic gangster Rocco, he owns every scene he is in. Barbara Bouchet is as exquisite as always, she plays a night-club dancer who is introduced to us in a mouth-wateringly erotic dance routine. Lionel Standler is very convincing in the role of the sinister crime boss The Americano; while the two cops are played by reliable Italian genre film regulars Luigi Pistilli and Frank Wolff.All in all, this is a quality action-thriller that remains relatively obscure. It's a very good example of what the Italian crime movie was all about.