Almost Human (Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare)

REVIEW
While hugely popular during their era (albeit more in their native country than as export items), 1970s Italian crime thrillers have never quite achieved the contemporary cult followings afforded the country’s horror output, and – until recently – they have also been woefully under-represented on DVD. Fortunately, No Shame Films – a new label devoted to releasing special editions of classic Italian cinema – are correcting this oversight with several notable releases, and Almost Human (a.k.a. Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare) is one of the best examples one could hope to view (for the record, Raro Video in Italy is also releasing many great Italian crime films on DVD with English-language options, for those of you with all-region players).

Prolific director Umberto Lenzi is more famous for his cannibal and zombie shockers (Man from Deep River, Eaten Alive, Nightmare City, and particularly Cannibal Ferox), which is lamentable since – while many of those films are enjoyable on their own limited terms -- Almost Human is an exemplary, riveting thriller that actually towers above Lenzi’s horror work, enduring as one of his very best films. A significant component in the film’s success is the remarkable performance from the legendary Tomas Milian (a Cuban-born, Italian-film-prolific actor who has worked for everyone from Lucio Fulci to Steven Soderbergh), who delivers an astonishingly maniacal performance as Giulio Sacchi, a minor-league Milan hood who devises a scheme to make it rich by kidnapping Mary Lou (Laura Belli), the daughter of a rich industrialist. With his two partners (including another Italian genre fave, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’s Ray Lovelock), Giulio then commits as much murder and mayhem as possible in the wake of the kidnapping: one sequence wherein the trio of thugs invade a house and machine-gun everyone inside (including a small child) is among the most harrowing, brutal moments in Italian crime cinema (in the interview featurette, even Milian admits he thinks the scene went too far). Meanwhile, tough cop Grandi (the inimitable Henry Silva) is on the hunt for Giulio (who’s not above casually murdering his own girlfriend), until the inevitable standoff occurs.

Milian’s portrayal of Giulio must rank alongside Andy Robinson’s Scorpio in Dirty Harry and Pacino’s Tony Montana in Scarface as one of cinema’s all-time great egomaniacal, sadistic lunatics, and he’s a consistently compelling screen presence. Lenzi keeps the action brutal and blunt, yet the film never feels as cruelly sensationalistic as the director’s other work, and Almost Human stands as an ideal – if nasty – introduction to the world of 70s Italian crime thrillers. Highly recommended.