Kino Lorber's KL Studio Classics line is no stranger to bringing thrills home, whether they're Hollywood-born or from overseas.
A triple feature descent into the dark, devious, and dangerous world of crime, and a must-own for fans of Italian crime cinema, arrives in the form of a new, three-film release to 4K UHD called Italo-Crime Collection.
1973's The Counsellor opens the collection with a San Francisco-set tale of a mob war fueled by poor choices and greed. Tomas Milian plays a young man who wants out of the family business, and it's a request that his godfather (Martin Balsam) approves. The opening creates both a vacuum and an accusation of weakness, and soon the Bay Area is running red with blood both Italian and otherwise.
Director Alberto De Martino (The Killer Is on the Phone) crafts a compelling film balancing family drama with absolute carnage, and while the latter element is far more striking and memorable, the entirety works well to entertain. San Francisco is captured well with action beats throughout the city, including a car chase up Lombard's twisty curves and a stray bombing that takes out a little girl. It's a mean little movie that holds your attention throughout.
1976's Blazing Magnum ramps things up in some wonderful fun and vicious ways with the story of a tough cop (Stuart Whitman) investigating the apparent poisoning of his younger sister in Montreal. His investigation offers up a list of suspects and some twisted behaviors on a college campus, and he's ready to beat the snot out of everyone he encounters in pursuit of the truth. Things only grow more complicated when an unknown killer starts murdering more young women with vicious abandon.
While the film above is focused on organized crime families, director Alberto De Martino (The Antichrist) returns here with a tighter, more focused grip on family-fueled violence. Whitman is a force of nature, and he's joined by John Saxon and Martin Landau for a hugely entertaining ride. The film makes fantastic use of Montreal, showcasing the cityscape throughout, exploring the city's highs and lows, and delivering an epic car chase through the city streets. We also get a couple highly effective scenes playing off the fear of a young blind woman.
The film was released in the U.S. as Shadows in an Empty Room -- a title meant to feel less like a Dirty Harry riff and more like a giallo -- and the collection includes a bonus Blu-ray with that cut of the film. The running times are basically identical, and the only real difference is that the U.S. version features the English language performances.
1977's Weapons of Death rounds out the collection, and it's the only one of the three actually set in Italy. Salvatore Santoro (the great Henry Silva) is a crime boss happy to sacrifice anyone and anything in pursuit of power and profit. The police are hot on his trail, but their every move sees Santoro causing more and more bloody carnage.
Director Mario Caiano's (Nightmare Castle) film is both a tangential sequel to Umberto Lenzi's Violent Naples and a well-executed action/crime tale filled with all the bloody kills and reckless action you'd expect from Italian genre cinema of the 70s. Silva is wildly charismatic and cruel as the big bad, and while some of the plotting gets lost in the weeds to the point of dullness, more scenes of violence and stunt-filled action are never far behind.
The collection features three discs -- The Counsellor on its own 4K UHD, Blazing Magnum and Weapons of Death on a shared 4K UHD, and a Blu-ray featuring Shadows in an Empty Room and a handful of mostly archival supplements. All three films feature new commentary tracks by (some combination of) film historians Steve Mitchell, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth.
William Webb provides video essays on both The Counsellor [6:17] and Weapons of Death [5:25], and there are interviews with Alberto De Martino [13:04], Kim Newman [22:07], Leonard Mann [17:48], and Mario Caiano [15:10].
Italo-Crime Collection is a fantastic set and well worth picking up, but Kino has gone the extra mile by also releasing each film individually to Blu-ray with the 4K restorations. Responses to the new restorations, all completed by StudioCanal, will be mixed, regardless of whether you watch the UHDs or the Blu-rays. There's no question that the three films are sharper and bolder than previous releases, but those of you already familiar with the movies might notice a new color grading that's dramatic enough to disappoint. I suspect most viewers, though, will be perfectly fine with the upgrade.
The legendary Walter Hill sees one of his less celebrated features get a facelift from KL Studio Classics, too, as 1989's Johnny Handsome comes to 4K UHD. The film's home video history is spotty, and this new transfer is guaranteed to please some and disappoint others.
The film is an engaging tale of betrayal and revenge about a young thief nicknamed Johnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) due to his facial deformities. He and his friend join some other miscreants for a brazen daytime robbery, but they're double-crossed once it's done and his friend is killed. Johnny takes the fall but winds up in the care of a surgeon who "fixes" his face, and that affords him the opportunity to seek revenge against the baddies (Lance Henriksen, Ellen Barkin) who did him wrong.
The premise feels akin to something like Brian Helgeland's Payback, but this is far from another riff on Parker. Hill is after atmosphere over action, and the result is a compelling enough character piece, albeit one that never really surprises. Rourke has some genuine highs here -- the scene where he sees his new face for the first time is a truly affecting moment -- but he's outshone charisma-wise by Henriksen and Barkin, both of whom are dialing up their New Orleans charm all the way to eleven.
As with the Italian collection above, Johnny Handsome's 4K restoration and color grading were completed overseas. The result is another mixed bag, depending on your preferences and eye for detail. The film's clarity and depth are both vastly improved over previously available Blu-ray editions, but the color grading is once again suspect with a lean towards a light blueish tint that's most noticeable with shots of the sky. It's apparently a deal-killer for some viewers, but I suspect most won't mind.
Kino's loaded their release with extras new and old, starting with two new commentary tracks. One features film historians Edgar Pablos, Nathaniel Thompson, and Howard S. Berger, and the second track is with film critics Alain Silver and James Ursini. We get a new interview with Elizabeth McGovern [15:02] reflecting warmly back on how she got involved with the film, her thoughts on Hill and her fellow actors, and her experiences during production. The remaining interviews are archival and include an in-depth talk with Walter Hill [43:40] and shorter chats with writer Ken Friedman [12:40], makeup artist Michael Westmore [10:16], and stunt performer Allan Graf [11:13].
Sometimes talented people deliver a misfire, and that's what happened with The Snowman. An adaptation of a popular Norwegian novel and character, the film follows a detective (Michael Fassbender) tasked with capturing an elusive serial killer with a wide-eyed recruit (Rebecca Ferguson) by his side. It should have been a slam dunk, but alas...
The Snowman fared even worse at the box-office than Johnny Handsome for a couple very obvious reasons. First off was the lead character's name -- Harry Hole -- the English pronunciation of which doomed the movie with general American audiences before it even hit theaters. Those who did brave the immature snickering to see the actual film were met with a script that feels chopped into misaligned pieces. The thrills and mystery just don't land, leaving the attractive cinematography and stellar cast (which also includes Val Kilmer and JK Simmons) to float listlessly in the chilly breeze. Director Tomas Alfredson and producer Martin Scorsese mean the money was there, but poor creative decisions led to poor results.
As mentioned, The Snowman is an attractive and visually evocative film, and the new 4K captures it well. The release packaging doesn't detail the nature of the upgrade -- it's usually stated on the back of the release -- so it's unclear, but the video upgrade is still evident. The film's nighttime scenes are crisp and deep, and the daytime sequences never get lost in the blinding white of the snow. It looks quite good.
Kino's new release includes two new commentary tracks, and both are informative and engaging. First up is film historian Steve Mitchell and writer Michael Charles Hill, and the second track features film historians Howard S. Berger and Marc Edward Heuck. We also get five archival featurettes on the cast [7:47], the creation of the Harry Hole character [4:06], the antagonist [4:04], the Norwegian landscape [6:34], and the film's lake stunt [1:37].
Matt Dillon and Sean Young headline another Kino release, 1991's A Kiss Before Dying, and it's a fun, albeit messy watch. A remake of a noir from 1956, director James Dearden's version leans into both R-rated thrills and absurdity.
Dorothy's (Young) twin sister has recently died a horrific death, but life goes on, and now Dorothy's days and nights are occupied by a new man. Jonathan (Dillon) is kind, loving, and unfortunately for Dorothy, possibly a killer.
This second adaptation of Ira Levin's novel ratchets up the skin and violence, but it neglects both character and suspense in big ways. The result is a film that feels silly when it should be thrilling, and neither main character becomes all that compelling. Supporting players like James Russo and Max Von Sydow are welcome sights, but they're not enough to make this one all that worthwhile.
Kino's new release is an odd one in that there's been nothing new done to improve the existing transfer. No new scan or restoration is evident, and Universal's print just feels flat. We do get two new commentary tracks, one from film historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and the second from David Del Valle and Ryan Bijan, and while both are engaging listens, neither saves the film.