WasAnnon
Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Janis
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Leofwine_draca
STUNT SQUAD is another above average Italian polizia film from a genre packed with rare gems. These '70s films always packed in groovy and exciting music tracks with fast-paced plots and hefty amounts of violence that Hollywood-style productions would inevitably shy away from. This film features the titular motorbike-riding cop squad who are employed to track down a gangster in the city who has been running a protection racket single-handedly.There is much to enjoy about STUNT SQUAD, which ticks all of the right boxes and delivers entertainment in spades. It's not the most action-packed of its type but the car chases and stunt crashes are handled with aplomb and the direction is never less than exciting. Marcel Bozzuffi, the French actor best known for playing the hit-man in THE FRENCH CONNECTION, is a fine choice as the tough cop who assembles the team, and Vittorio Mezzogiorno is thoroughly reprehensible as the ruthless bad guy. The film doesn't skimp on the violence either with explicit bombs, a hospital murder as gory as any giallo, and a literally crowd-pleasing climax. One disco scene with topless stripping women supplies the nudity quotient. STUNT SQUAD is what I call top entertainment.
Comeuppance Reviews
Protection rackets are running wild in the streets of Italy. The poor shopkeepers are fed up, but feel they are powerless against the muscle of the ever-increasing criminal gangs. The baddie of all baddies, a psychopath named Valli (Mezzogiorno) is not only the king fish all the cops want to catch, but is also a vicious killer and even a "phone bomber", a guy who exacts payment by placing bombs in telephones, so when someone calls your business - kaboom. But Valli has met his match in the take-no-guff police commissioner Grifi (Bozzuffi). Grifi wants to clean up the streets, so, noticing that he and his force are not dealing with ordinary criminals, they come up with an extraordinary solution. Saying "simple cops can't beat 'em - we need commandos", Grifi forms the Stunt Squad, a highly trained band of law enforcement that ride super-fast motorbikes and shoot to kill. But will it be enough to stop Valli? Find out today! We here at Comeuppance Reviews absolutely love the 1970's Italian Poliziotteschi movement, and this seems to be one of its lesser-seen titles. We can't seem to get enough of movies of this place and time, and apparently they were borne out of a real-life crime epidemic in the Italy of the day. The locations, the fashions, and the music all gel together with the violent plots and the result is addictive viewing. The power-team of writer Dardano Sacchetti, director Domenico Paolella, and the score by Stelvio Cipriani provide a solidly entertaining addition to the genre.Director Paolella seems to be concentrating on certain aspects not always associated with these types of Italian crime films - for instance suspenseful setups and varying uses of pace. At one moment, it seems slow, but then it speeds up, almost like the dynamics of the music of Cipriani. Plus this movie has one of the coolest training sequences we've seen in some time: in order to properly train his guys to become the Stunt Squad, they have to practice hitting targets with their guns while zooming on their motorbikes, and to somehow fit collaring criminals into their wheelie-popping schedule. Naturally, there are some great chase sequences, among other fine moments. Probably our only complaint about this movie is that it could have used more Stunt Squad. There are some pretty lengthy sections without them. But that's a minor quibble for this enjoyable movie.The film was released on VHS in North America on the cleverly-named label Lettuce Entertain You. Not only is this lettuce Canadian, but it's thought that it might be a bootleg (or at the least, grey-market) tape. That might help explain the fuzzy, washed-out, poor quality of the VHS. While we recommend this movie, we don't recommend this tape. Sad, it does the film a disservice, but it's a testament to the film that it can overcome these shortcomings and still manage to entertain. But on the upside, the dubbing does give us gems like "You have to start combing Bologna to find Valli". While they're clearly talking about the region in Italy, it's not every day you hear the words "combing Bologna" said. Or done for that matter. It just sounds funny.Perhaps the reason why Elimination Force hasn't joined the top tier of Poliziotteschi titles is because more people don't know about it, because of its unfortunate release on Lettuce Entertain You. Hopefully that will start to change, and if we're lucky, a DVD release will correct the record.For more action insanity, please visit: www.comeuppancereviews.com
Luca-Canali!
One of the better Italian crime films of the genre, it's also a fairly obscure one and although the plot is hardly original, the film never lets up and delivers more than it's fair share of thrills. Marcel Bozzuffi (of French Connection & Fulci's Contraband amongst other) is as reliable as always, this time as Inspector Grifi who sets up a special unit of commandos (the 'stunt squad') to combat the rise of violence towards innocent shop owners who refuse protection from the rackets. Their number one target is main villain Valli, who surprisingly turns out to be quite a memorable bad guy - impulsively gunning down, and in some cases exploding, anything that stands in his way. The best moments of the film are when Grifi and his Stunt Squad are pursuing Valli. Amongst some mild nudity (courtesy of the obligatory but very welcome night club scene) there are also some pretty brutal moments including a vicious throat slashing & repeated knifing of an hospital patient and **spoliers** the death of a double crossing pimp (Nello Pazzafini who can be seen in over 100 euro crime, Giallo and Westerns) who is beaten, castrated and then gunned down. (There is a very generous amount of blood squibs - no 'bloodless' deaths here!). I would highly recommend this to fans of Italian & Euro crime, it's pretty solid throughout and doesn't have any of the unnecessary humour or cheesy moralising which ruins so many other films of it's type.
sangue
Marcel Bozzuffi stars as comissioner Griffi, yet another hard boiled cop out to rough up the bad guys. Valli, had of a vicious protection racket, has his men plant bombs in the phones of citizens who won't pay up.after an old woman is killed in one of the attacks, Griffi forms the "stunt squad," a team of motorcycle riding cops trained in martial arts and stunt driving.okay, it sounds silly, but there's lots of cool chase scenes, car crashes, shootouts, beatings and explosions. the score by Stelvio Cipriani is great, as always, fitting the action perfectly.spoiler....... another cool thing is the ending where Valli gets lynched, the mob is broken up, then he gets lynched again!that's the first time i've seen that!
