By Richard Winters
My Rating: 5 out of 10
4-Word Review: Couple picks up killer.
Walter (Franco Nero) and his wife Eve (Corinne Clery) are constantly bickering about Walter’s alcoholism. They go on a trip to Los Angeles and on the way pick-up Adam (David Hess) whose car is stranded on the road. Unbeknownst to them he’s a robber who has doubled-crossed his partners and absconded with a suitcase full of $2 million dollars. It doesn’t take long before Adam has a gun to both of their heads demanding they take him to Mexican border where he plans to escape while also killing them in the process. As the two try desperately to figure a way out they are also being secretly followed by the two young men whom Adam betrayed and who are now intent on extracting a revenge.
One of the biggest problems I had with the movie is that it’s supposed to take place in California but was actually shot in the mountains of Gran Sasso in Italy, which looks nothing like the state. I realize that California has a varied topography but the locales here are screaming southern Europe and the highway signs are done in blue, which anyone living in the U.S. would know is fake as here they’re green, which only accentuates the off-kilter look of the production. Since where they’re driving to makes no real difference to the plot I would’ve just had it be some city in Italy like Rome, which would’ve helped the authenticity.
The other problem I had is that, at least the version I watched, it’s spoken in Italian. Normally I prefer movies that are subtitled versus dubbed, but I could’ve sworn years ago I saw it in English, but what’s available on YouTube, which is the only service currently streaming it, doesn’t offer that, which is a big shame. Not so much because of Nero or Clery, but more Hess as his own voice is not used, which then defeats the whole reason for having him. He’s best known for playing the sadistic killer in The Last House on the Left, and he has an excellent way of being menacing, but because we don’t hear him actually speak in his native tongue all of that gets lost and the creepy energy that was supposed to be there by casting him gets completely wasted.
Spoiler Alert!
The story, which is based on the unpublished novel ‘The Violence and the Fury’ by Peter Kane, doesn’t get off to a good start as it features two people, particularly Nero, who are not likable, and thus the viewer really doesn’t care about their predicament making the tension mediocre at best. There are also elements that are stolen from better known movies like the mysterious truck that keeps chasing them during their drive, with the identity of the driver hidden, that’s taken straight from Duel. Loopholes abound as well as we later learn that Hess is the driver of the truck, but how was he able to avoid being shot by his cohorts earlier with a gun aimed right at him and how was he able to hijack the truck as he had been without any vehicle? Maybe he was able to hitch a ride with a truck driver, just like he did with the couple, and then do away with the driver once inside, but this is stuff that needs to be shown as otherwise it comes-off like the filmmakers are just making up the rules as they go with no concern whether it’s logical.
The twist ending is limp as it features Nero setting the car on fire with his injured wife inside and putting Hess’s dead body next to hers in an attempt to make it look like both he (Nero) and she died in the blaze, but there were such things as dental records back then, so after the coroner examined the charred bodies he/she would determine that it wasn’t really Nero who died and thus the authorities would continue to search for him. Seeing him then become a hitchhiker himself leaves open too many questions and comes off like a cop-out where the filmmakers ran out of ideas and thus decided to just end it there.
End of Spoiler Alert!
The moment where Nero is forced to watch Hess make love to his wife, and witnessing the humiliation and anger in his eyes, is the film’s best moment. Watching Clery, the only person you sympathize with, is entertaining both with her clothes on and off. However, the film lacks any character development, and the plot is quite strained with a lot of moments where the story, much like with the car ride, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and if anything, just driving itself around in circles.
My Rating: 4 out of 10
Released: March 4, 1977
Runtime: 1 Hour 44 Minutes
Rated R
Director: Pasquale Festa Campanile
Studio: Explorer Film ’58
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, YouTube
Scopophilia 