Syndicate Sadists (aka One Just Man/1975)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
Umberto Lenzi did a long series of Italian-produced
Gangster genre films that offered much of the action urban indie and Hollywood
films offered. Some are better than
others, like Milano Rovente (1973, reviewed elsewhere on this site), and
then some are just plain odd. Syndicate
Sadists (1975) does not have the edge of the previous film and feels more
like a Spaghetti Western in landing one big Hollywood star and hardly featuring
him. Joseph Cotton is the one who gets
the paycheck + vacation this time as a high-up head gangster.
Even wackier is Tomas Milan looking more like a dirty
Spaghetti Western cowboy than a detective (Serpico he’s not) on a motorcycle
over a horse as the opening credits show.
Best of all, his name is Rambo!
Yes, so Sylvester Stallone can really claim the name is Italian enough
after all and Milan found it in a book called First Blood. Like his later Vietnam Syndrome fighting,
bodybuilding namesake, he will shot and kill and kill throughout the film until
he saves a kidnapped young boy. That is
predictable, though sometimes amusing, but this is just not one of Lenzi’s
stronger films. Fans will get a kick
out of it, though.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is not color
rich, but the transfer is consistent and it has a mix of sharp and soft quality
throughout. The color was by the
Luciaro Vittori labs and the format looks like inexpensive Techniscope. Frederico Zanni’s cinematography is not bad,
shooting the show big and wide, not afraid of screen space. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is a mix of dubs
and languages, with a strange, silly score by Franco Micalizzi has a very
dated, repetitious, main music instrumental that is just a hoot. Extras include an audio commentary and on
camera interview (over 8 minutes) with director Lenzi, four trailers for other
Media Blasters/Shriek Show DVDs and a stills gallery.
It is an amusing film, especially unintentionally. With three films and now possibly a fourth,
Stallone’s Rambo franchise continues that continues the
tradition of fighting and unintended hoots.
Now you can compare the two.
- Nicholas Sheffo
