THE TOUGH ONES: The Two-Fisted Cop Movie Mastery Of Umberto Lenzi
It took a while for modern cult film fans to be able to accurately assess the worth of director Umberto Lenzi in the U.S. During the VHS era, he was primarily known in this country for blunt-force shocks of Eaten Alive and Cannibal Ferox. However, as VHS gave way to DVD and later blu-ray, more of his work became available and he was revealed to be a craftsman skilled in a variety of genre styles. For instance, he excelled at gialli, making a string of fan-beloved entries with Carroll Baker as well as the surrealistic classic Spasmo.
It was also revealed that Lenzi excelled at the poliziotteschi, the ultra-tough brand of Italian cops-and-crooks film inspired by the likes of The French Connection and the Dirty Harry series. The tough, dynamic style of filmmaking required by these films suited Lenzi well and he made several during the genre's '70s heyday, including iconic titles like Almost Human and The Cynic, The Rat And The Fist. The Tough Ones was produced in the middle of this flurry of activity - 1976 to be precise - and it rates as both one of the genre's classics and one of Lenzi's best films.
Maurizio Merli, arguably the biggest star of the poliziotteschi,toplines as Inspector Tanzi. He finds himself deeply frustrated by the risingtide of crime in Rome and a belief that the law favors the crooks over thecops. He bucks the trend, much to thedismay of his juvenile psychiatrist girlfriend Anna (Maria Rosaria Omaggio) andthe stern police chief (Arthur Kennedy). As Tanzi deals with an array ofrobbers, rapists and pushers, he tries to track down an elusive crime boss.Along the way, he finds a worthy adversary in Vincenzo (Tomas Milian), ahunchbacked lout who uses a blue collar cover to disguise his criminalactivities - and the two lock horns in a way that leaves Rome riddled withbullets, corpses and crashed cars galore.
The resulting film is a prototypical example of thepoliziotteschi. Imagine an American crime film from the '70s that has beengiven a shot of adrenalin and you'll know what to expect: hard-nosed messagesabout justice and the legal system married to a plot that exploits the sleazeof the criminal milieu and piles on all the action the filmmakers can summonup. The script was concocted by Lenziwith veteran Italian scribe Dardano Sacchetti: reportedly, it was writtenquickly to replace a existing script that Lenzi didn't like. It takes an on episodic style but never losespace because the vignettes between the main plot are used to raise the levelsof fisticuffs, shootouts and car chases.
Lenzi gives the proceedings an appropriately vigorousand taut style of direction that matches his material's sense of forward drive.He keeps the dialogue scenes short and tighly paced. Better yet, he mixes sleekcamera work and punchy editing with a verite sensibility in how he useslocations, making the street locations a character and giving you a sense ofthe unease between its sleek surfaces and the criminal elements theycontain. Best of all, he has atwo-fisted approach to action: highlights include a suspenseful standoff duringa bank robbery that is capped with bullet-riddled action and a hair-raising carchase through busy streets that incorporates some blazing machine-gunfire. If the latter seems to have avisceral reality, that's because it was shot in real traffic without permits(as was all the car action here).
That said, the true core of The Tough Ones is the battle of wills between its two maincharacters. Merli became a tough-guy superstar in Italy thanks to the profilehe cuts here and in his other cop films: driven, intense in a tightly-coiledmanner and a man's man who does his own stunts and fighting. When he brawls hisway through a youth hangout to beat down some rapists, complete with a barrageof his trademark open-handed slaps, you believe it (highlight: as he beats downthe leader, he snarls the legendary line "Craplike you oughta be put in a home and castrated!").
To his credit, Milian matches Merli step for step bycoming at his role from a different angle. Milian had Actor's Studio trainingto draw from so he takes things in a more Method-style direction, givingVincenzo an array of emotional textures - sarcastic to psychotic to pitiful to enraged- and bounces back and forth between them like a pinball, creating a crediblyvolatile and unpredictable baddie. He also invested deeply in the character'stwisted physicality to give the role an unexpected element of pathos. Itsurprisingly made Vincenzo a underdog appeal to Italian audiences. Whatever youfeel about him, you won't be able to look away.
Elsewhere, Lenzi rounds the cast out with reliableItalian character actors like Giampiero Albertini as Tanzi's more even-temperedpartner and Ivan Rassimov as a slick, cruel drug dealer. Lenzi's crew is just as distinguished:cinematographer Federico Zanni makes the film look like a million bucks (hiscar-mount shots are stunning), editor Daniele Alabiso gives the film itsunflagging pace and, best of all, composer Franco Micalizzi gives the film apounding, crime-jazz score with punchy horn charts and some cool analog-synthbasslines.
In short, The Tough Ones is a testament to Lenzi's cinematic skills and a display of his mastery of the poliziotteschi genre. If you aren't familiar with the genre, this is a perfect starting point.