BROTHERS 'TIL WE DIE

Aka La Banda del gobbo (I)
1977
Italy
Luciano Martino for Dania Film, Medusa Distribuzione
Director : Umberto Lenzi
Story & screenplay : Umberto Lenzi, with additional dialogue by Tomas Milian
Music : Franco Micalizzi, conducted by Alessandro Blonksteiner
Cinematography : Federico Zanni {Technicolor}
Editor : Eugenio Alabiso
Art director : Giuseppe Bassan
Original running time : 98 mins
Italian takings : 488.000.000 lire
Shot at: n/a
Cast: Tomas Milian (Sergio Marazzi aka 'Pigsty' / Vincenzo Marazzi aka 'Humpo'), Pino Colizzi (Inspector Sarti), Isa Danieli (Maria), Guido Leontini (Mario Di Gennaro aka Coldcuts), Luciano Catenacci (Mario Perrone), Solvi Stubing (Marika), Sal Borgese (Milo Dragovich aka Albania), Francesco D'Adda (a doctor), Fulvio Mingozzi (a policeman), Carlo Gaddi ('The Panther'), Sandra Cardini, Livio Galassi (Inspector Valenzi), Pierangelo Civera, Nello Pazzafini (Carmine Ciacchi), Franco Odoardi, Valentino Macchi, Roberto Caporali, Rosario Borelli, Fortunato Arena, Tony Morgan, Cesare Di Vito, Mario Savini, Mario Piave
Uncredited: Tom Felleghy (a Judge), Riccardo Petrazzi (the getaway driver)

It wouldn't be possible to look at Italian crime films without encountering the name of Umberto Lenzi, one of the true masters of the genre. What his work lacks in depth, it makes up for in pure entertainment value - delivering a feisty montage of thrills, spills, eccentricities and adrenaline soaked action. Although Brothers Till We Die isn't his best work (a position I'd reserve for the superlative Violent Naples (Napoli vioolenta, 76)), it's a rumbustious, thoroughly endearing - if ingratiatingly vulgar - affair.

Vincenzo Marazzi (Tomas Milian) is a notorious hood with a hunched back, a chip on his shoulder and truly bad hair. He has returned to Rome after a period hiding out in Corsica, time that he has fruitfully spent planning a heist on the armoured truck that delivers cash to the city bank. It all goes swimmingly and the robbery is a success - apart from the fact that he is betrayed by his three seedy accomplices: Perrone (Luciano Catenacci), Albania (Sal Borgese) and Coldcuts (not, unfortunately, the redoubtable DJ/experimental musicians behind the ace Ninja Tunes label). Shot and left for dead, he manages to make his escape by crawling down a manhole and through a particularly grungy sewer. Nursed back into good health by his voluptuous girl Maria (Isa Danieli) and exchanging romantic dialogue such as 'Ain't no company needed when Humpo is getting humped!', he swears to have his revenge.

The police however, in the form of Inspector Sarti (Pino Colizzi), are all too aware of his homecoming and are determined to have him arrested. As the corpses start piling up they become more and more desperate - even resorting to the resoundingly unsuccessful tactic of rounding up all the hunchbacks in the city! Eventually they realise that the best way to get to him is through his twin brother, Sergio Marazzi (also Tomas Milian), a slightly dim mechanic with a mild case of Tourette's syndrome and, err, extremely bad hair. Knowing that big bro' will attempt a rescue, they place him in an institution - where the doctors attempt to have him committed after playing a word association game with him ('Cuckold', 'psychiatrist', 'idiot', ''well fuck you, too!'). However, they've underestimated Vincenzo…

Well, this is a truly moving portrayal of the isolated world of the outsider. Separated from 'normality' by his all too visible physical deformity, Vincenzo is driven to take his revenge on those who would drive him from the safety of regular society. This is never more true than the scene in which he is shown disco dancing, whilst all around trendily attired swingers clap him on, laughing uproariously at his slightly unusual technique - an almost Camusian demonstration of existential angst. In many ways this can be considered Umberto Lenzi's Edward Scissorhands, his Forrest Gump. Unlike both of these, however, our outcast hero gains his revenge by surrounding himself with a band of goons, powerdrilling people in the head and being a generally admirable menace to society. I'm pretty sure that if Tomas Milian's Vincenzo did meet Johnny Depp's Scissorhands, the guy with no fingers would lose out (although he could probably carry out some much-needed surgery on his opponent's coiffure).

Like all of Lenzi's work in this area, this is technically accomplished - particularly effective when the director's taste for no holds barred action is complimented by Franco Micalizzi's driving soundtrack. There are some great car chases; some good shootouts and some appalling dialogue. There is absolutely no attempt to create anything that has anything to do with art, and it's all the better for it.

It is Tomas Milian, however, who steals the show. So irrepressible an actor is he that they had to give him two roles - and he still manages to ham in both of them! Above all, he manages to generate sympathy for what are, in reality, two pretty horrible examples of the human race. He also displays a pretty sure comic touch, something which would become more prominent in a series of films (such as Cop in Blue Jeans (Squadra antiscippo, 76) and Hit Squad (Squadra antifurto, 77)) in which he starred as Nico Giraldi, a foul-mouthed cop (with, needless to say, bad hair). I particularly enjoyed the scene in which, during a vivid hallucination, he mistakes a drippy hippie for Jesus and berates him about all the injustice in the world. Fantastic fun.

Reviewed by Matt Blake