Too much of everything

Must See Movie...

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I have to say that even my being a Charles Bronson fan didn't help me watching this movie. The beginning is not bad and much promising with a nice car chase scene. But that's all the good you'll see because then it starts getting weaker and weaker and weaker. The problem of this movie is that the plot is very little, uninteresting and has no integrity. It's just a sequence of events. I constantly had the feeling there was no firm hand making this movie and all the actors were just wasted. They couldn't even figure out to the very end of the movie in what direction it should be going. So, as you can probably guess the writing in whole was really bad to say the least. Although there were some good lines delivered by Telly Savalas and Charles Bronson, nothing redeems this movie to me. Speaking of the absence of definiteness, here's an example: you see Telly's thugs at least in 2 or 3 scenes, that is they did exist, but it turns out so easy for Bronson's character to just step into Telly's house and kill him. So what was the purpose of those guys? That's what I'm saying. There's no outcome to anything in this movie, no culmination, in other words everything turns out in the worst way one might expect. A lifeless and empty movie shot in a very unorganized way. I truly hope this review will prevent other people from being disappointed the way I saw. Just avoid it.

Lethal and laconic professional hit-man Jeff Heston (the almighty Charles Bronson in peak rugged form) gets double-crossed and left for dead. After getting out of jail, Jeff tracks down both the shooter and the man's alluring, yet treacherous mistress Vanessa Sheldon (splendidly played with classy and sexy panache by Jill Ireland) to New Orleans. Shrewd and ruthless crime boss Al Weber (smoothly essayed with delightful twinkling humor by Telly Savalas) wants Jeff to join his organization, but Jeff refuses. This begets a series of explosive events with dangerous consequences for all involved. Director/co-writer Sergio Sollima relates the complex and absorbing story at a steady pace, maintains a tough, no-nonsense tone throughout, punctuates the plot with occasional moments of startling brutal violence, stages the action set pieces with thrilling expertise (the totally silent opening car chase is an absolute corker), delivers a flavorsome evocation of the Big Easy setting, and tops everything off with a real doozy of a surprise bummer ending. This film further benefits from tip-top acting by the stellar cast: Bronson excels in a tailer-made role that plays to his strengths (Jeff is a quiet guy whose actions speak for him), Ireland likewise impresses with her deliciously seductive portrayal of the conniving and duplicitous femme fatale supreme Vanessa, Savalas makes the most out of his few scenes, and Umberto Orsini positively oozes as smarmy and opportunistic lawyer Steve. The ubiquitous Ennio Morricone provides a perfectly robust and pulsating score. Aldo Tonti's crisp widescreen cinematography adds a nicely expansive sense of scope to the picture. Well worth seeing.

I've been watching a lot of these Italian cop flicks recently, but unfortunately; Violent City isn't one of the best. The film was released before Dirty Harry (unlike the rest of the genre), so it does deserve some credit for originality. That's not to say it's bad by any means, but this Charles Bronson vehicle doesn't entertain on the same level as a lot of the rest of the genre. There are certainly a lot of good things about this film; but unfortunately, there's also a lot of bad and the film features long stretches where little or nothing happens, which certainly isn't to its credit. It's a shame really as this has the basis to be one of the best of the Italian crime films just because of the fact that it stars the 'man of few words' Charles Bronson. The plot is pretty standard stuff, and focuses on a hit-man that is double crossed by his friend and girlfriend. After getting out of jail, he decides to take revenge on those that wronged him. However, some way into his revenge; he begins being blackmailed by a powerful crime boss that wants the hit-man in his organisation.Charles Bronson has a lot of screen presence, despite the fact that this role doesn't really suit him. His character is called 'Jeff' (it's really hard to imagine the grizzled Charles Bronson being called "Jeff"), and it's also rather difficult to imagine him having the women after him... The film's positives are, luckily, enough to save it from being a complete loss. The opening car chase is really good, and provides the perfect opening to the film. From there, we are treated to a handful of good action scenes, including plenty of shooting (a given, since the lead character is a hit-man). The sequence at the end is the best part of the film, as it's both exciting and inventive, and provides the perfect way for our lead character to get his revenge. The support cast isn't great, and features Telly Savalas, who is decent enough and Jill Ireland, who looks nice throughout. However, the plotting continually gets in the way and the fact that the film doesn't run smoothly greatly hinders it. Overall, Violent City certainly has its moments; but it's not one of the best crime films to come out of Italy during the seventies.

Only the most die-hard of Charles Bronson fans would gladly sit through 1970's The Family, a grade-Z, Italian-made, oh-so-deep, hit-man story.Don't get me wrong. I always liked Bronson and I know he had to make his living in Europe in the late 60's because the big shots in America wouldn't give him a chance, but cripes, this sloppy, talky, tinny, overly-deep, incoherent, dubbed-to-death (read Roger Ebert's very funny review in the Chicago Sun-Times) piece of Euro-trash is so awful that the only three things I can say for it are as follows: 1. Bronson, God rest his soul, was what every middle-aged man would like to look like 2. The car chase at the start of the film is pretty darned entertaining 3. Jill Ireland, God rest her soul, couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag, regardless of the killer curves The rest is for you to decide upon, if you're a glutton for Euro-punishment.