Watch Rome, Armed to the Teeth For Free

Too much of everything

hyped garbage

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Sometimes I think that what really takes you into this movies is... the tune. At the beginning you see an "Alfetta" driven by a guy wearing a red and black scarf, some creepy skyscrapers in the background while the credits appear on the bottom right of the screen. You feel just surrounded by a massive soundtrack and you smile. I wonder if it used to feel the same in the seventies. I've seen only another Lenzi's movie. "Milano odia. La polizia non puo' sparare" has got a similar plot (Same subject, to be honest) but the director chose to put the criminal as the protagonist. In "Roma a mano armata" the policeman is violent and aggressive, in "Milano odia" the outlaw is a sort of victim of the system. It looks like the fight against criminality gets tougher day after day. The cinematographic relevance of these movies is their success in celebrating the action. But I found in Lenzi's a strong attention in the sociological issues related to his stories. His characters have got a good inner nature, they seem like gotten worse because bred in a hard environment. Finally, it is just amazing how a 31 years old film is still perfectly enjoyable and that is probably due to a neat and careful direction.

"Rome Armed to the Teeth" actually just confirmed something I already knew, but it was a more than welcome reminder. Umberto Lenzi was a genius (or better, IS a genius as he's still alive only no longer active for obvious reasons) and with this film he delivered another high-speed, adrenalin-rushing, mega-violent, hyper-brutal and ultra-demented Poliziottesco masterpiece! I admit I'm biased regarding the director and the genre, but this is unquestionably the most fun any movie can possibly offer. The plot is standard and the characters are stereotypical, but the action moves forward like a derailed train and something new & exciting happens approximately every one and a half minutes. And would you just look at that cast! The top of the contemporary Italian cult-industry is gathered here, including the impressively mustached Maurizio Merli, the naturally uncanny looking Ivan Rassimov and – my personal favorite – the multi versatile Tomas Milian in another formidably villainous role. Merli embodies everything the cinematic 70's copper stands for; reckless, stubborn, vengeful, disobedient towards his supervisors and, most of all, sick & tired of apprehending criminals only to see them terrorize the street again a couple of hours later. The first fifteen minutes or so perfectly illustrate how Commissioner Leo Tanzi struggles: his superiors are only concerned about the police's image in the media, his psychologist girlfriend disapproves his harsh methods and claims criminals should be helped instead of arrested and spoiled, self-confident thugs openly laugh in his face. And so Tanzi creates his very own one-man special brigade, with a little help and sympathy from his friends at the force. His main occupation is to exterminate an organized gang of armed bank robbers, led by the hunchback super criminal Il Gobbo, but in his spare time (which is often just when he drives from one crime scene to another) he makes a clean sweep of underage purse-snatchers, youthful serial rapists and drug-dealing pimps. "Rome Armed to the Teeth" guarantees 100% excitement, with plenty of wild car chases, shoot-first-ask-questions-later spectacle, and testosterone-packed dialogs. Franco Micalizzi's score is terrific, Frederico Zanni's camera-work is often dazzlingly fast and – the gifted filmmaker he was – Umberto Lenzi stuffs his film with ingenious little gimmicks and details, like the opening credits from a criminal's point of view, spotting potential heist targets. The actors are great. It is said that Maurizio Merli and Tomas Milian couldn't possibly get along in real life. This might have resulted in unpleasant days on the filming sets, but on the screen their 'vendetta' definitely assures an even more convincing good vs. bad chemistry. Magnificent film, highly recommended in case you can stomach a lot of brutal violence.

Recently I had the pleasure of watching both the Italian "Roma a Mano Armata" and the US cut "Assault with a Deadly Weapon." Lenzi's reputation as a filmmaker rests mainly on his Crime films from the mid-to-late '70s for good reason and this is an addictive and fast-paced brilliant piece of that work. Maurizio Merli is great as the quietly intense Leonardo Tanzi and deserves much more credit than the "Franco Nero wannabe" usually leveled at him. The US cut is missing the first 8 minutes of Merli's failed bust of an illegal gambling ring (at least that's what I gleaned from the lack of subtitles) and sets up his frustration of being under the law himself while desperately trying to rid the world of those who break it. Even with a different credit sequence that oddly doesn't actually credit anyone but actor Arthur Kennedy (as the director!), the US cut (available on VHS in the '80s as part of Sybil Danning's Adventure Video series with a bizarre introduction by Ms. Danning herself) is still highly highly recommended. Hopefully this will be available on DVD for more people to discover these series of films, which can easily appeal to the same fans of Italian horror and Eurocult cinema.

Maurizio Merli and Tomas Milian star in probably the most typical, yet completely enjoyable Italian crime movie by Umberto Lenzi. With a blazing soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi and some exciting camerawork by Federico Zanni, this film is fast-paced and furious although the narrative makes relatively little sense. This reminds me of THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS, a film Dardano Sacchetti also penned, which was completely fun and enjoyable although it didn't make any sense whatsoever.The best scenes in this movie have to be the extended car chases. Milian hijacks an ambulence and kills all the people on board for no reason. When it crashes in a crowded flea market, Milian jumps out of the ambulence and just starts randomly firing his sub-machine gun into the crowd to create enough confusion to get away. Another great scene has a gang of upper-class teenagers led by the baby-faced Stefano Patrizi who get bored of nightclubbing and proceed to rape a girl and beat up her boyfriend in a vacant lot. Patrizi is wholely unsympathetic as he punches the boyfriend in the gut repeatedly and knees him in the face, then making weird gestures with a nearby piece of wood. Merli later pops by their nightclub and smashes Patrizi's face right through a pinball machine and then simultaneously beats the tar out of the six or so members of the gang!This film comes fast and furious. Good performances all around by a veteran cast (with Arthur Kennedy, Ivan Rassimov, and Luciano Pigozzi along for the ride). It's not the most coherent of Lenzi's works, but it's definitely a genre classic. Where's the DVD?