Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Leofwine_draca Enzo G. Castellari delivers another efficient polizia flick but unfortunately one that is not up there with the best of his output. THE BIG RACKET is another typical contender for the popular crime thriller genre in '70s Italy, complete with heroic cops, sadistic villains and lots of corporate corruption upsetting our detective's investigation. The story is particularly strong here as the film tells of a series of businessmen falling foul of the villains before teaming up to as a vigilante group going out to get the bad guys – definitely a novel twist for the genre. Castellari's strength is, as usual, in the action, and the stand-out here is a shootout at a rail yard, complete with machine-gunnings and all of the tense heroics and violence you could wish for. Sadly his famed use of slow-motion is in short supply but the film is nevertheless powerful and impactful in places. The warehouse shoot-out is also a good one, sustaining interest despite being lengthy.The cast contains the usual big boys of the genre: Sal Borgese, Renzo Palmer, Vincent Gardenia and Orso Maria Guerrini are all here as dodgy roguish types, led by the dashing Fabio Testi as the chief cop (Testi always underplays his roles, the extreme opposite of the overacting madman Maurizio Merli). The film is pretty shocking and has only just been released uncut in Britain, as the bad guys have a tendency to rape young, innocent women and then set them on fire afterwards. Castellari's direction is strong but the script is workmanlike throughout and there are no big surprises or sequences which really lift it above the norm for the genre. Good, solid, sometimes sleazy fun from Italy.

JasparLamarCrabb One of Enzo Castellari's great '70s crime films. Fabio Testi is a police inspector bent on ridding the city of a gang of brutal extortionists only to be rebuffed continually by a corrupt legal system. Taking matters into his own hands, he recruits a number of the gang's victims to help exact revenge. An extremely violent (even for a Castellari) film that takes no prisoners. Test is terrific and the supporting cast is unusually strong: Vincent Gardenia; Renzo Palmer; Glauco Onorato; Orso Maria Guerrini. Castellari moves this film along so quickly it's breathtaking. There are a number of now legendary action sequences including an astounding and protracted shoot out in an abandoned factory that has to be seen to be believed. The great music score by Guido is a major asset and the beautiful cinematography is by Marcello Masciocchi.

lazarillo Along with Fernando DiLeo and Sergio Martino, Enzo Castellari is one of the Italian genre directors whose work has really been rehabilitated lately thanks to people like Quentin Tarantino. And, however, you feel personally about QT, it's hard to fault his tastes. Castellari, whose father (Marino Girolami) and uncle (Romolo Guerreri) were also respected Italian directors, made many films in many genres, including Westerns ("Any Gun Can Play"),gialli ("The Cold Eyes of Fear"), and horror flicks("Sensitiva"). His two most famous films were "The Last Shark", which never shown in the US because of an injunction brought by the makers of "Jaws", and "Inglorious Bastards", which Tarantino recently (and very loosely) remade. This movie is not one of his more famous, but it is definitely one of Castellari's best.Fabio Testi plays a cop who is taking on a big, mafia-connected protection racket that is shaking down businesses all over Italy, and using disgruntled left-wing university students, including a tough female ( ) to do it. Frustrated by the limitations of the law, Testi eventually puts together a gang of victims of the racket including Vincent Gardenia, a small-time crook who lost his nephew to the gang, an Olympic champion skeet shooter who lost his wife, and perhaps most touching, a restaurant owner who went crazy after the gang raped his young daughter and she killed herself. Together they plan an improbable, but not entirely unbelievable, campaign to take down the entire racket.This movie has a lot of the elements of a police thriller, but also of a rape-revenge/"Deathwish"-type movie. I wouldn't really call it "fascist" though because it really doesn't glorify violence (not too many people are left alive by the end of this). The protagonists, especially Testi's character, are flawed, three-dimensional, and vulnerable rather than being just a heroic super-cop types. And this has downbeat, noirish elements like some of the early American police thrillers of that period (i.e. "Dirty Harry", "The French Connection", "Deathwish"), but that were definitely lost by the happy-fascist Reagan era. These aren't self-righteous, fascist crime fighters, but decent people driven to extremes in a violent, decaying society. Of course, as an action movie this is still very entertaining, but the realistic violence and three-dimensional characters always keeps it from simply degenerating into another cop-worshipping cartoon. Recommended.

paultucker72 they don't make em like this anymore. i total recommend it to anyone who enjoys guns, car crashes, cheesy dialogue and 70's hairstyles. Fabio testi is better in this than in contraband. also blue undergrounds DVD picture quality is a vast improvement over the UK version. much better than Bronx warriors or the heroin busters, enzo casstellerie other efforts. story moves along at a cracking pace. music is what you would expect from this type of film in this era. the stunts are what make this film. the camera puts you right in the middle of the action, literally! you'll know what i mean when you see it. overall then, go for the blue underground DVD its a quality purchase.