High Crime

Director Enzo G. Castellari doesn’t attract the same kind of attention as his fellow genre-workhorses in Italian cult cinema circles.  Perhaps because his films never went overboard on gore (like Fulci) or caught on with U.S. distributors (like Leone).  But the action scenes, which vacillate between Peckinpah-inspired slow-motion and whip-pan intensity, are cinematic creations unto themselves. Castellari puts his camera right in the thick of things – barreling down city streets, scuffling under the docks or right behind a shattered windshield.  There’s an energy to his choice of angles, a devil-may-care inventiveness to his staging that was an obvious influence on modern-day filmmakers.  

A fast-paced knock-off of The French Connection, High Crime (1973) stars Franco Nero as Vice-Commissioner Belli, a wild-eyed cop determined to rid the city of Genoa of its crooks and corruption, even if he has to do it all himself.  He’s got an angel and a devil on each shoulder: Commissioner Scavino (James Whitmore) knows where the all bodies are buried but doesn’t have the courage to blow the whistle…while Cafiero (Fernando Rey) is a mob boss at the end of his career trying to make good.  The question is, which one of these father figures should Belli trust?

 

The first of their several collaborations together, Castellari and Nero make for a good cinematic match. Like the director’s cameras, Nero never stops moving, modeling his physical performance on Gene Hackman’s perpetually pissed-off performance as Popeye Doyle. It’s a rather one-note role, but he invests it with humanity many other poliziotteschi lack. Throwing Fernando Rey into the mix only plays up the international legitimacy of the Italian film industry’s bread-and-butter: capitalizing on a Hollywood hit until the well runs dry.

 

But High Crime has its own unique charm and Castellari’s wastes no time getting to the good stuff.  The opening sequence, which begins as a foot chase, turns into Mad Max-style vehicular battle on the city streets and ends with one of the best car bombs every captured on film.  Never satisfied with ordinary camera set-ups, Castellari stages his violence for maximum impact; when the slow-motion kicks in – and that bass groove on the soundtrack starts up - you know you’re in for something good!  Narratively, High Crime may be simply turning over stones to see what Friedkin left on the cutting room floor, but it comes up with some gems nonetheless.

 

The latest 4K Ultra HD re-release from Blue Underground, the company truly goes out of their way to make sure this is the last copy you’ll ever need to buy. Packing a 4K transfer with accompanying Blu-ray and CD copy of the score from composers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, this is one thick 3-disc set.  Visually there’s a staggering amount of detail in the new version, which wasn’t exactly poor to begin with.  But the Dolby Vision works wonders on the contrast levels, bringing out colors that simply weren’t there before.  Extras include three audio commentaries and all the archival interviews and featurettes packed on the previous release presented in a new handsomely embossed package.

 

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