Am I Missing Something?

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

"Mister Scarface" director Fernando Di Leo has a high-ranking Italian police official compare Mafia gang wars with the Vietnam War in "The Boss," the final explosive chapter of his "Milieu Trilogy" that began with "Caliber 9" (1972), aka "Milano calibro 9" (1972) with Frank Wolff and followed with "Manhunt" aka "La Mala ordina, " (1972) co-starring Henry Silva and Woody Strode. If you're looking for no-holds-barred violence on a grand scale, "The Boss" antes up more than enough mayhem and murder during its 100 minute running time to satisfy your thirst for blood. Skull-faced heavy Henry Silva delivers another monosyllabic performance as a cold-blooded Mafia executioner. Veteran Hollywood star Richard Conte lends strong support as the top-most Mafia chieftain."The Boss" covers several weeks of action. It begins inconspicuously enough with a guy carrying a package under his arm who enters an anonymous building. Di Leo shrouds this uneventful activity with composer Luis Enríquez Bacalov's slightly paranoid jazz soundtrack and create a modicum of tension. An entirely different guy in a red shirt delivers a film reel to the projectionist upstairs so we now know that the building houses a movie theater. Downstairs, a well-dressed, loud-talking mobster leads a group of mobsters in business suits into an auditorium. He proclaims that they are about to watch a Danish porn movie with "the best looking broads in the world." Meanwhile, the man with the package, Nick Lanzetta (Henry Silva of "Ocean's 11"), relieves the projectionist of his duties, clobbers him over the head, and get him out of his way. Nick assembles a rifle with a grenade launcher. He turns the auditorium where the mobsters are sawing the porn movie into a inferno. The implicit message that pornographic films are bad for you is unmistakable.Commissioner Torri (Gianni Garko of "Bad Man's River") runs the Mafia types out of the police morgue where the charred remains of the burned bodies lay on slabs. Torri explains his theory to his boss, Il Questore (Vittorio Caprioli of "Mister Scarface"), that the government is to blame for the bloodshed. "It's the fault of the government," Torri argues, "The results of a policy that is a failure. Since the government forced the old bosses into exile, their families have been left fighting for position. That results in complete disorder. All your newer families begin to feel impatient—I'm talking about the oldest ones they suddenly get the ideas that they can start grabbing for power because their own coppo was around to keep it under control." Torri argues that everything is liable to explode if they don't bring back the old dons. Tension exists between Torri and Il Questore because the latter knows that the former receives bribes from the Mafia. Il Questore cannot make any charges stick against Torri and he cannot transfer him out of his department.The massacre in the movie theatre was triggered when an outsider, Cocchi, (Pier Paolo Capponi of "My Name is Pecos"), who is not a Sicilian, wanted to get into the family. Cocchi wants to deal in drugs. Don Corrasco (Richard Conte of "The Violent Professionals") doesn't want drugs in Sicily. Hmn, sounds like "The Godfather." Anyway, Do Corrasco refuses to have anybody in his family that has survived for 40 years who isn't a Sicilian. Fifteen minutes later in the movie, the remaining members of the crime family that Nick wiped out in the porn movie abducts the daughter, Rina Daniello (Antonia Santilli), of Don Giuseppe Daniello (Claudio Nicastro of "A Man Called Magnum), who set Nick on them. The abductors specify their demands: "We don't want money and we don't want the girl. Nothing is going to happen to her, if we can have you, your life for hers. We figure that's a fair exchange." Meanwhile, Cocchi's perverted hoodlums ply poor Rina with liquor and rape her with gleeful abandon.The Don refuses to let Don Giuseppe exchange himself for his daughter. "They would torture you first, would just kill you, they would torture you first. They'd eventually make you tell them who the family contacts are. I'm not thinking of myself but the family it existed for forty years, Giuseppe. We've built it up and defended it together. Nothing is yours not when it interferes with the family." Nick suggests that they offer Cocchi money to stall for time. He insists also that they tell the kidnappers that Don Giuseppe has suffered a heart attack.When Don Giuseppe wants to buy his daughter back without Don Corrasco's permission, Nick shoots Giuseppe and has his body cremated. Nick is an orphan who Don Giuseppe Daniello was raised as his own son, but he has no qualms about killing Giuseppe and Giuseppe's right-hand man. Nick arranges a deal with another gangster, the brother of the Mafia chieftain that he exterminated in the movie theatre. The guy reveals the whereabouts of Rina. Single-handedly, Silva rescues her as two thugs are raping her and kills them without a qualm. He drives through a wall and smashes another car into three pieces.By this time, all the bloodshed has upset Mafia leaders in Rome. They want to see Cocchi and Don Corrasco strike a deal so the killing can stop. Don Corrasco dispatches Nick to finish off Cocchi's gang. The Mafia liaison from Rome urges Don Corrasco to eliminate Nick. According to Don Corrasco, Nick is a man of "infinite resource." Nevertheless, the Don arranges a deal with Torri to arrest Nick and find incriminating evidence that Nick was behind the movie theatre massacre. Torri confronts Nick at his apartment. Nick turns the tables on Torri and forces him at gunpoint to call up Cocchi and invite him to visit him."The Boss" chronicles one bloodbath after another with double-crosses galore in a Mafia power struggle over territory. This is one of the very best Mafia melodramas to come out of Italy.

OK, so maybe such a comparison has grown tired, but given the year this film was released and the more than likely inspiration it received from the former, it makes sense. Anyway, I just re-watched the Raro DVD edition of this classic 1973 Italo-crimer. I must say the film is even better the second time around as it allowed me to notice details I was previously unaware of. This film is easily one of the best Di Leo crime flicks and ranks as one of my favorite Mafia film of all time. In my book it beats the hell out of 'The Godfather'. The film begins with a fantastic opening sequence which is absolute exploding dummy heaven. That particular scene features Henry Silva blowing away a group of horny elderly Mafia bosses with a rifle mounted grenade launcher! What follows is a compelling Mafia story chronicling the rise of Silva's character to the top. Plenty of interesting events ensue, one of which features a montage of atrocities equal to 1,000 'Godfather' baptism scenes. Henry Silva plays one crazy mofo in what is perhaps his coolest role and Luis Enríquez Bacalov provides a truly awesome score (even if it is somewhat a rehash of his earlier work on 'Summertime Killer'). With plenty of action (not to mention nudity courtesy of the lovely Antonia Santilli), this is an absolute must see for fans of poliziotteschi. Also watch for Hollywood veteran Richard Conte and Spaghetti Western star Gianni Garko who appear in memorable roles.

The Boss is the third and final part of Fernando Di Leo's loose trilogy based on organised crime, and it's also the weakest. Milano Calibro 9 and The Italian Connection are without doubt two of the finest examples of this genre, but while this one isn't particularly bad; it's not great either, and despite a number of standout moments; The Boss grinds to a halt on more than one occasion, and I was nowhere near as gripped during this film as I was during the other two parts of this trilogy. The film is more focused on the 'organised crime' angle than the other two films; and The Godfather seems like an obvious influence. The film focuses on a war between two rival mafia families. Things start to get out of control after an attack on the local porn theatre, which leaves a load of gang members dead. Naturally, the wronged gang decides to take revenge for these killings and goes about kidnapping the rival don's daughter Rina Daniello. At the centre of the tale is the Nick Lanzetta, the assassin behind the killings in the theatre.The film gets off to an explosive start with a sequence that sees the central character blow a load of people away with a grenade launcher. This is somewhat misleading; as a film with an opening like this really promises excitement all the way through, but unfortunately things slow down after that, which really annoyed me. The film does feature some other interesting scenes (including a nice death scene that sees someone get a flick knife in the mouth), but The Boss never manages to top its opening scene. A lot of the film is made of talking, and that's not what I tune into this sort of film for; I prefer my Polizi full blooded and full of car chases and gun fights. Like the superior 'Italian Connection', this film stars Henry Silva. The cult actor made a number of these films, and he suits the hit-man role well. Seasoned Italian cult film actor Richard Conte stars alongside Silva and also does well also. I have to say that I was losing interest by the end, but thankfully the film does have just about enough about it to ensure that it's worth seeing for fans of this usually wonderful genre.

This movie shows it like it is. In this movie Ferdinando di Leo was brave enough to use real unofficial incidents that were happening at the time,he even used some real names, or changed some by changing only a letter from the name, After this movie came, Ferdinando became paraniod that someone was going to "take care of him" for the content of this movie but nothing happend. This movie is great because, Di Leo doesn't make out the characters to be charismatic role models, but the cold blood assassins they really are. I give this movie 2 thumbs up. Plus and the end of the movie it sais to be continued, but not because theirs going to be a sequel, but becuase he just did a piece of mafia history, and the mafia continues, no good endings or bad endings, just a piece of history.