Blu-ray Review: FERNANDO DI LEO CRIME COLLECTION

The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection was RaroVideo's second home video release in the USA last year. The films were reviewed and discussed quite thoroughly by our Peter Martin at that time.  It only makes sense that RaroVideo's follow up to their inaugural Blu-ray of The Clowns would be this set, and a welcome addition to the collection it is.  Peter's review was pretty thorough, so mine will be more observational, hopefully, but I feel that these films deserve more attention, especially since the jump in quality is mostly very impressive.

Fernando Di Leo was not a big name in the US, despite considerable box office success abroad in Italy and western Europe. In fact, apart from a few cinephiles, I would imagine that few film fans on this side of the Atlantic were aware of his existance before these DVDs came out. He did have one champion in Quentin Tarantino, however, Tarantino throws around kudos so freely that it's easy to ignore them these days. As much as I like his films, and I really do, I think QT's "check out this film/filmmaker that I know about and you've never heard of" bit gets tiring really quickly.  However, in the case of Di Leo, I hope it is a boon for RaroVideo, who've mentioned QT not only on the front cover of these DVDs, but also on the back.  If it helps them move some units, I guess I can forgive.

The real star of the box set, as always, are the films, and the fact that four Fernando Di Leo films arrive on Blu-ray in the US today hopefully gives Fernando a little smile somewhere in the great beyond. Included in this box set are the three films in his Milieu Trilogy and their follow up, Rulers of the City. The Milieu Trilogy contains one "where's the money" film, Caliber 9, one "assassins on a mission" film, The Italian Connection, and one "Godfather" film, The Boss. They all share a focus on the little guys who do the dirty work for the mob, and how their small piece of the pie can be a big thorn in a boss's paw. Rulers of the City may be my favorite in the set, it's more of an underworld romp about a couple of guys trying to make their own future, it is a lot of fun keeps up a great pace. All four of these films are well worth checking out for anyone interested in Italian crime films, or anyone interested in good gangster films.

The first film in the Milieu Trilogy is Caliber 9, which follows Ugo Piazza (Gastone Moschin) after he gets out of prison while he goes through all kinds of hell dealing with his old bosses. Ugo is the strong silent type and insists that the 300,000 he's supposedly hidden isn't in his possession, but the bosses don't believe him and send Rocco Musco (Mario Adorf) after him to collect.  Mario Adorf is brilliant in Di Leo's films and embodies the stereotypical greaseball Italian goomba better than any actor I've seen. Along with ratcheting up the tension as the film rolls along, Di Leo throws in a few solid shoot outs to keep the audience happy, including one in which Ugo's pal takes out an entire party of people all with only one gun while being shot at hundreds of times. Quite impressive stuff. The film ends on kind of a down note, but with a twist that helps solidify the world in which these characters live.  This is solid entertainment.

Caliber 9 looks great on Blu-ray.  All of the films have been restored from the original negatives to varying degrees of success.  This is one of the two better looking films in the collection, teh image is quite solid and gives us considerably more detail than we could have asked for with DVD. The film also includes an English language dub which I sampled liberally and found very pleasing. As I've mentioned in many previous reviews, these Italian films from this era were not filmed with live sound, so any dialogue track would be dubbed, and both the English and Italian dubs on this film are very satisfactory. RaroVideo also front-loaded this disc with most of the substantial extras, including Calibro 9, a documentary about the making of the film and its origin, a documentary on Di Leo as a director titled La Morale del Genere, a documentary on the author whose work inspired thei Milieu films, Scerbanenco Noir, as well as a photo gallery with conmmentary and director bio and filmography.  There are nearly an hour of supplemental materials on this disc, and many of them refer to other films in the set, but that's no reason to skimp on the other discs, and they have not.

In an attempt to drive up foreign box office numbers, the second film, The Italian Connection, brings in two American actors to play the pivotal roles of assassins, Henry Silva and Woody Strode. Silva and Strode are a mencaing pair, with Strode cutting a particularly imposing silhouette. They are called upon by a New York mob boss to take out a small time pimp responsible for a missing heroin shipment. Once they arrive in Italy, they are met by the New York boss's Italian couterpart who promises their target's head on a platter. In the role of the unfortunate one is again Mario Adorf as Luca Canali. Luca's character doesn't really understand why be's being summoned by the big boss, and fights back with all of his might, turning out to be less of an easy target than anyone had anticipated.  When Canali's boss orders a hit on his wife and daughter, the wheels are set in motion, no pun intended, for a spectacular car/foot chase that is among the most impressive set pieces in the whole box set. Silva and Strode aren't given a whole lot to do in the film apart from look like ugly Americans, but it is a role that they tackle with relish. The Italian Connection is superbly entertaining, and a breezy 100 minutes.

This is one of the two more unfortunate discs in the collection. While the image quality is certainly a small step up from DVD, there are a number of technical issues with the disc. There are several points at which digital artifacts rear their ugly heads and even a couple of audio dropouts in the Italian language track. I understand that the original elements were probably not in the best condition, but these seem to have more to do with the mastering than anything else. The image is relatively soft with only a few moments of impressive fine detail.  The disc isn't the worst I've seen, but it isn't as impressive as Caliber 9. Luckily, RaroVideo have provided yet another documentary, Alle Origini della Mala, on this disc to help me forget. The film is great, and I wouldn't suggest anyone miss out on it for the faults in the presentation, but I'm supposed to be critical, so there you have it.

Badass number one, Henry Silva, returns for a leading role in the third film, The Boss, or as it is awesomely known in Italian, Il Boss. This is probably the most epic film of the series and provides a ton of entertaining set pieces and characters to work with, along with some great lines from Henry Silva's Lanzetta. This film has everything you could possibly ask for in a gangster flick: an exploding theater, kidnapping, bodies in furnaces, sharp one liners, hippie nymphomaniacs, revenge, corruption, and more. Attempting to describe the plot would be futile, as no words could convey the pure sense of joy one gets from watching this hugely entertaining yet utterly exploitative film. Silva's performance rivals anyone's best "I don't give a fuck" role in the history of film. He's not called Il Boss for nothing.  This is the longest film at 112 minutes, but it flies by, and is completely riveting from beginning to end. In fact, I was nearly late for work because I couldn't stop watching it. Definitely worth the purchase.

Now the not so good news, this is the other title in the collection that suffers from glitches, though these may be due to the source material. The image is rather soft as the film opens, though we do quickly forget that problem as the story worms its way into your head. I believe that the softness goes away as the film progresses, but that could be selective memory on my part. The audio, on the other hand, is just as good as Caliber 9, and for me, the English language track was the prefered one, since Silva seemed to be giving his lines in English most of the time. There is yet another documentary on this disc, titled Storie di mafia, which explores yet another corner of the Italian crime film and Di Leo's importance in the genre.  The Boss is a standout film in a collection full of standouts.

The final film in the collection, Rulers of the City, is technically outside of the Milieu trilogy, but takes place largely in the same world.  This film features a pair of young hoods trying to make their mark in the underworld by running scams on the big mob bosses.  Obviously, this doesn't go down so well with the big daddy, Scarface Manzari, played by legendary Hollywood heavy, Jack Palance. This was the first film I tackled in the box and probably remains my favorite. The tone of the film is much gentler than the other three films, and it has a comedic track that works very well. These young guys are still small potatoes in the big game, though, and that helps to connect this film to the others in the box.  Their youth and agility helps the film reach a younger crowd and amps up the stunt count by a sizeable amount.  I really enjoyed Rulers of the City because of its unuusally laid back tone and atmosphere. This is a great film, and though I hate to reuse a word so frequently in a review, no other fits quite as well as entertaining.

This is the other great looking disc in the set. There is significant improvement over the DVDs in terms of fine details and color, as well as general depth of the image.  The audio is also very good, with both Italian and English language dubs standing out. The Italian track on this film was the most effective one, I found, since most of the main talent was Italian. Jack palance chews scenery like nobodies business, and this one definitely makes me want to seek out more of his work from this era.  We wrap up the coverage of this set with yet another documentary, Citta violenta, and a fantastic booklet containing a 15 page interview with Di Leo along with lots of photos and other biographical info.  At the price for which Amazon is currently selling this box (currently less than $30), the Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection Blu-ray set is a steal!