You thought local cops were hardcore: LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN

LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN (1976)
D. RUGGERO DEODATO
RARO VIDEOLTBX ANAMORPHIC DVD

Ruggero's Deodato's sophomore film after the softcore sex film WAVE OF LUST was this hard as nails, almost fascist, Italian Police action film that holds the place card for being one of, if not THE most violent of that sub-genre. The Italian "Polizia" film was a popular sub-genre of the thriller that ran through the 70's with certain directors excelling at them. Writer Fernando Di Leo often wrote many of the era's crime pictures, and his name is on the screenplay for this one as well. Themes of corruption, street violence, and the Police having to be as bad as the criminals run through these films. LIVE LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN takes these themes to such a hyper violent, almost absurd level that it almost has to be parody. But anyone familiar with the violent excesses of Ruggero Deodato's other films will quickly realize it probably isn't. He is just a director that likes to go over the top. He may very well have his political themes and concerns, but at the end of the day, he feels everything has to be turned up to eleven.

Ray Lovelock and Marc Porel star as Ray and Tony two off the cuff Italian cops who make up the "special forces" for the Rome police. Seems being the "special forces" in Rome equates to having a license to kill, beat up and maim whomever you may need to for any case at any time. The movie opens with a seriously impressive motorcycle chase when two scum bags snatch a lady's purse and drag her a half block, smashing her into a fire hydrant in the process. Our heroes see it happen and go after the thugs. It is important to mention the two of them seem to just cruise around together on a motorcycle with no where really to go irregardless if they are on duty or off. They may not be portrayed as gay, but bunked up on the motorcycle together holding each other tight, they certainly look that way more than once. The chase ends shockingly with the thugs wrecking into an open truck, one of them impaled on the handlebars and the other once bleeding internally. To which Ray viciously snaps his neck. When our dudes are walking away from the scene one asks the other "Did yours die on his own? I had to help mine along!"

From here they set out to find a local gangster and to do so they decide to flush him out by setting fire to all the fancy cars in the lot of one of his clubs. So they burn all the Rolls Royce and other big shot cars, as well as the night watchmen working there! Later in the movie Ray is shocked to find out the cars were not insured and feels a pang of remorse for burning the automobiles!!! They slap around the Mafia guys big tit sister and take turns fucking her since she is a nymphomaniac (In real life this actress was the sister of Ruggero's wife, so there is a little bit of weirdness there. Ruggero's wife plays the sexy Secretary the guys keep trying to seduce with no success because she is too smart and liberated to fall for their horseshit!).

The duo also break up a hostage situation,and stop a robbery, both by sneaking in and literally cold blooded shooting everyone involved, one by loading up silencers and sneaking onto the scene and wiping everyone out. Their boss constantly treats them like they are overzealous kids, not the murderous psychopaths they clearly are.

The movie walks a fine line between being a straight out action film, a piece of right wing propaganda, and some sort of weird violent parody/ fantasy. It works best when looked at in the last category as a berserk parody of Italian action and cop films where things are never what they should be. Instead they are way more violent and insane. The only movie in this realm that compares is LUCIO FULCI's equally over the top CONTRABAND (1981).But that film plays it straight as a gangster picture. This thing is like a hyper violent cartoon satirizing the cop genre.

Interestingly enough this is one of the best looking productions I have seen from Deodato. Slickly directed with great actions scenes and just great, knock about moments. While his horror films are well regarded sometimes his stuff can feel cheap (THE BARBARIANS, DIAL HELP, THE WASHING MACHINE) but this consistently feels like a top notch production and is well worth checking out.

The new RARO DVD has trailers and a 42 minute documentary about the making of the film with interviews with most of the surviving key players in which they all reminisce about the making of the film, the apparently made up on set controversy between the lead actors, and yes, how it was supposed to be a serious action film.

Review © Andrew Copp

Surviving Edged Weapons

Surviving Edged Weapons (198?)
D. Dennis Anderson
????


Downloaded this off of Cinemageddon recently and what a great discovery it was.

This is a police training tape from Wisconsin on how to properly prepare and survive when criminals attack police officers with knives, machetes, swords and other bladed weapons. While there is some mondo footage of crime scene photos scattered throughout, the name of the game here is dramatic recreations. And boy are these AWESOME! It seems to me that someone on the police force really wanted to be an action filmmakers and just could give two shits about making a training tape as these things are just out of control, action packed over the top gore vignettes. This out of control hilarity starts with two cavemen fighting over some roasted rabbit. But one of them tricks the other one and pulls out a stone age knife and stabs the shit out of the other guy, thus showing that people have had the urge to cut the hell out of each other since the beginning of time. This 2001 epic opening sets the tone for this no budged nonsense. For the first maybe two thirds of the tape they at least have something to do with the material as the narrator will discuss a certain type of knife attack and we will see it go inevitably wrong and see the cop get slashed, gored, or run through complete with gushing and spraying blood and 70's styled freeze frames. A fantastic early scene has a detective go to a dues house and announce at the door that the cops are there an dhe needs to come out. Inside the guy is sitting alone, clearly disturbed. In the background by the door is a HUGE broadsword that would be at home in a CONAN movie. Before the cop can pipe up again the dude cracks the door and impales the detective on the sword, removes it and closes the door again. Awesome. As to be expected 90% of all the "criminals" on display are minorities I.E. African American's and Latin Americans just waiting to shank a cop at any given moment. And the couple of white guys are naturally hell's angels or drunken homeless. In fact the Hell's Angel has the most ingenious hidden knife I have seen in ages by having a concealed blade attached tot eh INSIDE of his gas cap on his motorcycle. If I ever hit my midlife crisis and get a bike, I'm sure as hell getting one of these for protection! By the last reel this thing has gone totally bonkers by having a shootout in a Latino drug bar that looks like they were trying to out do Walter Hill. Seriously the scene looks like an outtake of EXTREME PREJUDICE except without the skill, and has fuck all to do with surviving bladed weapons. They clearly just wanted to shoot a big gun fight with whores in tight dresses and squibs.

If all this wasn't enough you get tearful recantations of actual cops telling the terrifying stories of the various knife attacks they encountered on the job, including the one officers who got stabbed multiple times and punctures a lung, the female cop who got both of her arms cut so bad she almost lost both of them and the main cop who almost got his face literally carved off. you'll be asking yourself the whole time, where the fuck were their partners when they were getting craved up? The main badass got has the best lines when he says things like "I'm not gonna die in some god damned ghetto!"

Plus most of the criminals in the re-enactments have Canadian accents!


This one is a winner folks!

someone on You tube beat me to the punch and made a pretty sweet music video of the best scenes. Check it out. Before the fuckers at you tube have it removed for having copyrighted music...



Andy Copp