One of the more clichéd plots in Eurocrime cinema is the small time cop fighting his way through waves of seemingly petty criminals before discovering that there is a crooked cop in on the act and a shadowy organisation controlling it all. This is the plot of this film, and the plot of The Big Racket, Silent Action, Violent Professionals, Killer Cop, and so on and so forth. This time round Klaus Kinski is part of a hit squad who organise the arrival in Italy of a New York hitman who dresses up as a cop, heads to a hospital where a mafia Don is in custody, whacks the capo, then for good measure whacks the two guys helping him before being sent back to the US by Kinski and his mates. Please note that Kinski does not speak a single word of dialogue in this film, so it's easy money for him, the lazy creepy bastard. Problems arise immediately when the hitmen twig that an employee at the airport may have witnessed everyone meeting and conspire to kill her off in a convoluted fashion (basically one of them hits on her flatmate and dates her for a while, takes her out to a nightclub, then someone else fakes a phone call to her while the guy steals her keys, gives them to someone else, who gives them to Klaus Kinski, who then goes to her house and kills her - simple!). Of course, once this girl is dead, her flatmate can then identify the guy who stole her keys, so then she and he needs to die too, but then what about the guy who pushes the other guy into the path of a car driven by Kinski? While the hitmen are scrambling about trying to kill everyone in existence the guy trying to save these poor folks is Philippe Leroy, a cop who is wondering why every time he gets a witness under his protection, they end up dead anyway (note to Philipe - watch more Italian crime films - you'll figure it out soon enough!). The plot might be the same as usual but Mario Gariazzo is a trashy enough actor to know that to keep the audience awake you've got to have the car chases, boobs, violence and Luciano Rossi getting his balls burned off with welding gear. Why does Luciano always get cast as a rapist? Was he comfortable with this?

'La mano Spietata della legge' (1973) is sadly a little-known and poorly documented euro-crime that merits re-discovery. That said, any high- octane Italian actioner from the early 70's swollen with a typically phat-sounding, grooved-out score from Stelvio Cipriani, and festooned with an especially muscular performance from Philippe Leroy is going to be anything but a time waster. In addition this zesty euro-crime effort also features tyro screen-gobbler Klaus Kinski who, surprisingly, turns in a somewhat restrained performance here as a blow torch-wielding hit-man; nevertheless still cutting a dashing, violent swathe through the proceedings in his hep-cat sunspex. It might well have been this film that got me to re-view many other titles starring that most swarthy of enigmatic actors, Philippe Leroy...Methinks it it time for a Leroy retrospective!

The Bloody Hands of the Law is a rarely seen Italian crime film. It stars the reliable Klaus Kinski in a role as a professional killer. He goes through the entire movie without even saying one line of dialogue, I'm sure not having to learn any lines suited Kinski just fine. Anyway, the film still benefits a lot by having his considerable presence at its disposal. He isn't the lead actor though, that would be Philip Leroy who had an important role in another much better poliziotteschi, Milano Calibro 9. He has more of a starring role in this one and he does give it his all. He looks like a bad ass and he clearly seems to be doing his own stunt work as well. With these two on board it's a bit of a pity to acknowledge that the movie itself doesn't match up to its lead actors. The story is fairly uninteresting and has no real dynamism and it isn't even always easy to follow what's going on. The crime network that underpins the story isn't very well explained and we never really know what they're all about.The story, such as it is, begins with a professional assassination of a crime boss. Witnesses to the crime are bumped off and then others involved in the investigation also meet violent ends. A policeman frustrated with the ineffectiveness of the law demands that the gloves are removed and a more heavy–handed approach is taken in bringing these gangsters to justice.Like all Italian crime films it's pretty violent in places, with a particularly memorable scene where a would-be rapist has his crown jewels obliterated with a blowtorch which seemed rather appropriate. But otherwise the violence is less original and consists mostly of men administering beatings to one-and-other. As I said, the story is messy, so it's hard getting very involved in this one, which is a shame because there is good things about it. I particularly liked the downbeat and moody ending that at least rounded things off on an interesting note. This one also stars the very dark and dusky beauty Silvia Monti, who also featured in Lucio Fulci's classic giallo A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, in a support role as Leroy's lover.

Finding Mario Gariazzo's landmark Giallo/Erotic Thriller crossover Play Motel to be an enjoyable, pretty sleazy movie,I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I actually had another Gariazzo film in my "must watch" pile of DVDs/Video's,which would give me the thrilling chance of seeing Gariazzo take on the Italian Crime genre.The plot:Learning that the head of a much larger,rival gang group is currently in hospital for an operation,a bunch of low down gangsters decide to team up and perform a special stealth "operation" on the hospital.Checking to see that no one else is around,the gangsters quietly sneak in and quickly kill the mob boss and a near by nurse.Leaving the scene of the crime feeling that they are now on the up and up,the joy of the gangsters is short lived,when they relies that a number of people witnessed them leaving the mob boss's room.Fearing that the witnesses could speak at any time,the gangsters start searching round in the hope of killing all of the witnesses,whilst Commissario Gianni De Carmine attempts to find the witnesses before the gangsters kill every bit of proof connected to the assassination.View on the film:Despite the DVD print from Alfa Digital attempting to make nothing shine out in the movie,(with a 5 minute car chase scene becoming a bit tough to watch, due to Alfa making the screen go to near black!) Klaus Kinski is still able to give a very good performance as lead rival gangster Vito Quattroni,who thanks to not having a single line of dialogue in the film,helps Kinski to make Quattroni a menacing villain,who can start shooting from out of nowhere.Going in a slightly classier direction than he did with Play Motel, (such as featuring no "bedroom" scenes,and only having a beautiful woman appear topless!) director Mario Gariazzo cover his wafer thin screenplay, (which does contain,a terrific,down beat Noirish ending) by making the set pieces short,but very fun and gritty,with two of the main highlights being a man's crotch v a blowing torch and a pre-Resivar Dogs twisting of an ear.