The Violent Four

One of the best representatives of the poliziotteschi genre. The semi-documentary form, which prevails especially in the first half, gives the plot a stamp of authenticity and personality that I have not noticed in any other film of this genre, so popular in the 1960s and 70s. At the beginning it's a kind of introduction of the main players, bandits and policemen, indifferently accompanied by a narrator's voice, followed by a roughly twenty-minute action inferno, with an excellent car chase, whose only weakness is its unrealistic nature, where bullets fired from close range rarely find their target. The ending, with Volonté's sinister laughter, is excellent. Gian Maria Volonté, by the way, was a chameleon of an actor who alternated such contradictory roles – gangsters, policemen and judges – with extraordinary ease and believability. On the other hand, the weakness of the film is clearly the character of the police commissioner, unbelievably played, a very power-hungry macho figure with a permanent cigarette in his mouth. Tomas Milian, an otherwise excellent actor, didn't do a very good job with this one. (18/01/2016)

This is one of many attempts to shoot a European gangster film in a somewhat different way. The Violent Four is still interesting mainly due to the animal-like performance of charismatic Gian Maria Volonté in the role of a ruthless gang boss and the wild, lengthy car chase through the streets of the city. This film has energy, a decent pace, and an interesting subject based on real events, but it is brought down by two problems. First, and above all, the film seems to consist of two radically different parts that do not go well together. The first roughly third is a quasi-documentary, with the police chief describing the crime situation to journalists, and the rest abandons this form and becomes a classic crime film. The second problem lies in the character of the police officer, who behaves like an affected, overdressed Hollywood star. He comes off as quite unsympathetic and does not provide a natural counterbalance to the criminal group. Overall impression: 65%. (13/05/2016)

La première séquence d'environ un quart d'heure est pleine d'idées et dynamique - le flashforward de la fin de la bande de voleurs est présenté comme un flashback du narrateur/détective qui donne également des informations générales sur la montée de la criminalité à Milan (par exemple, de manière intéressante et cinématographique, en reconstituant mentalement des cas typologiques que le détective commente en voix off, qui sont finalement complétés par une reconstitution réelle à laquelle il assiste personnellement). Ces flashbacks (en fait des flashforwards) sont insérés dans cette introduction qui se déroule rapidement, et en suivant la panique des Milanais, le spectateur ne sait pas au départ quelle ligne d'histoire il va suivre, jusqu'à ce que l'axe principal de l'intrigue se cristallise finalement. Celui-ci est raconté de manière conventionnelle et il est intéressant (que vous le considériez comme un avantage ou un inconvénient) de constater que nous ne revenons pas du tout au style documentaire à la fin. Dino De Laurentiis a toujours su trouver de l'argent et ici aussi, il en a trouvé suffisamment, de sorte que les scènes de foule et d'action ne font certainement pas honte, au contraire. (17/10/2014)