Blu-ray Review: Rogue Cops and Racketeers: Two Crime Thrillers from Enzo G. Castellari

This two-disc set provides fine transfers, insightful extras, and enough slam-bang action to satisfy the most ardent Eurocrime fan.

Rogue Cops and Racketeers: Two Crime Thrillers from Enzo G. CastellariWriter-director Enzo G. Castellari is a maestro of the action set piece. His penchant for fluid camera movement and razor-stropped editing gives you more bang for your buck regardless of the genre he finds himself working in, whether that’s the pseudo-giallo (Cold Eyes of Fear), the spaghetti western (Keoma), or his multiple poliziotteschi productions. Arrow has brought together two prime cuts of the latter in their new Rogue Cops and Racketeers box set. Cynical, often brutal, these crime thrillers gain additional power by lashing together different approaches to the police procedural.

With its renegade cop mired down in the endless red tape of the legal system, 1976’s The Big Racket shows an obvious debt to Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry, except that the inspector played by Fabio Testi in Castellari’s film is a far cry from Clint Eastwood’s almost godlike avenger. His Nico Palmieri isn’t above making unfortunate decisions that tend to backfire on him, as in an early scene in which the man’s cack-handed style of shadowing the gang he’s after lets them get the upper hand on him. They end up rolling his car down a steep ravine—a jaw-dropping sequence that Castellari largely shoots from inside the plummeting automobile.

The Big Racket also folds in a rape-revenge scenario or two that channel the vigilante fury of Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey in Death Wish. The first sequence is made even more unpleasant when you know that the prepubescent victim is played by Castellari’s own daughter, while the second really goes beyond the pale in ways you have to see to believe. Narratively speaking, these nasty bits serve to set up the righteous vengeance sought by the victims’ father and husband, respectively. Along with a career criminal (Vincent Gardenia) and a rival gangster, they’re recruited by Palmieri into what you might call his Dirty Handful.

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The Big Racket scores its social commentary points in several ways. Two scenes featuring angry mobs escalate in deadliness, showing that it’s not only the police who are frustrated by the rising tide of violence during the so-called Years of Lead, but the public as well. The film takes its most salient jab in the last-minute reveal that a corrupt lawyer (Antonio Marsina) rules above the entire gangster syndicate. If the system itself is rotten to the core, what else is there to do except go rogue? This belies a despair with society as a whole that not even Dirty Harry would embrace. But The Big Racket ends with a striking freeze frame on a moment of impotent rage, suggesting that not even this radical action is worth it in the end.

For its first half at least, 1977’s The Heroin Busters mines material similar to William Friedkin’s The French Connection, down to a globetrotting prologue that tracks a shipment of heroin from Hong Kong and Amsterdam to New York and ultimately Rome (all shot on location). The film then takes up residence for a while in a demimonde of junkies and dealers, gaining points for its grubby verisimilitude (if you’re into that sort of thing), including the questionable sight of a desperate addict licking spilled heroin off a toilet seat.

Eventually we pick up a figure glimpsed in the prologue, Fabio (Fabio Testi), when he’s arrested with a sack full of smack at the airport and thrown in the slammer with parttime dealer and fulltime addict Gilo (Wolfgango Soldati). Since this is Testi, we’re pretty sure he must be undercover, but the film takes its time proving him to be our resident Frank Serpico. This happens when he finally crosses paths with the amusingly profane Inspector Mike Hamilton (David Hemmings), but only after a brilliantly staged foot chase.

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The entire second half of the film is one protracted chase scene, broken down into several component sequences that involve cars, motocross bikes, and finally, if less excitingly, dueling airplanes. Castellari really cuts loose in these scenes, whether it’s a fraught standoff in a ruined building, an acrobatic clamber around a building site, or a stunning pursuit through an under-construction subway station. Despite its early attempt at documentary realism, The Heroin Busters proves more effective as an exercise in style, more escapist and far less excoriating than the truly incendiary The Big Racket.

Image/Sound

Arrow presents The Big Racket and The Heroin Busters in new 2K scans of the original camera negatives, and the transfers both look spectacular, lending some real depth and clarity to the image. Colors really pop, especially in certain key sequences that use hot reds and sickly greens to maximum expressionistic effect. Flesh tones appear lifelike, black levels uncrushed, and grain well-maintained. Both films come in either Italian or English Master Audio mono. English is preferable if you want to hear David Hemmings’s real voice, though Vincent Gardenia is clearly dubbed by another actor. Either way, the tracks do fine by the incredible funk- and psych-laced scores by the De Angelis brothers and Goblin, respectively.

Extras

Both The Big Racket and The Heroin Busters come with commentary tracks from critics Adrian J. Smith and David Flint. Conversational and at times amusing, the tracks are packed with information about the cast and crew, and the films’ relation to both the poliziotteschi and broader Eurocrime genres. Smith and Flint also provide an excellent overview of Enzo G. Castellari’s extensive filmography that’s spread across both tracks.

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Each disc comes with interviews with Castellari, actors Fabio Testi and Massimo Vanni, and editor Gianfranco Amicucci about the film in question. They’re loaded with fascinating anecdotes, particularly about the various location shoots. Testi has a lot to say about the sociopolitical relevance of the films both then and now, and Amicucci, in the interview for The Heroin Busters, gives his analysis of the decline of Italian cinema since the 1980s.

Elsewhere, DJ and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon provides a new appreciation and career retrospective of the De Angelis brothers and Goblin, then goes on to discuss specific musical cues with an eye to their instrumentation and emotional impact. Finally, there’s a lavishly illustrated booklet tucked into the slipcase that features essays on The Big Racket and The Heroin Busters from Italian genre expert Roberto Curti and critic Barry Forshaw.

Overall

Cynical, violent, and action-packed, Rogue Cops and Racketeers provides fine transfers, insightful extras, and enough slam-bang action to satisfy the most ardent Eurocrime fan.

Score: 
 Cast: Fabio Testi, Vincent Gardenia, Renzo Palmer, Orso Maria Guerrini, Glauco Onorato, Marcella Michelangeli, Romano Puppo, Antonio Marsina, David Hemmings, Sherry Buchanan, Wolfango Soldati, Massimo Vanni  Director: Enzo G. Castellari  Screenwriter: Dino Maiuri, Massimo De Rita, Enzo G. Castellari  Distributor: Arrow Video  Running Time: 198 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1976 - 1977  Buy: Video

Budd Wilkins

Budd Wilkins's writing has appeared in Film Journal International and Video Watchdog. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

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