Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Jonathon Dabell Un Uomo Da Rispettare (or The Master Touch, as it is known in the English-speaking world) is a German-Italian crime caper which finds a big Hollywood star in the lead role. This was a common ploy with European films of the 60s and 70s, presumably with the aim of securing a wider market for their film… John Mills, Roger Moore, George Kennedy, Richard Burton, Oliver Reed and many other established talents all lent their names to one or more of these Euro-trash movies at some point or other. Here, the big name in question is Kirk Douglas, playing against type as a career criminal with his eyes fixed on one final score.Just released from a three year jail sentence, thief Steve Wallace (Kirk Douglas) heads back home to reunite with his wife Anna (Florinda Bolkan). Before he gets there, he is accosted by crimelord Muller (Wolfgang Preiss), who tries to persuade Steve to do a job for him – the near-impossible burglary of a million dollars worth of insurance money from a high-tech building in Hamburg. Steve refuses, pointing out that he always did well enough working for himself, and was only jailed in the first place after disastrously attempting to do a job for Muller. However, Steve is secretly intrigued at the prospect of going after this huge prize. He enlists a circus trapeze artist named Marco (Giuliano Gemma) and persuades him to carry out a small robbery at a local pawn shop, carried out at exactly the same moment that he plans to steal the fortune in insurance money. Steve's plan is to take the rap for the pawn shop job – a mere 18 months in jail – while in actual fact he has really carried out the much bigger insurance money robbery. Neither Muller, nor the cops, will realise he is responsible for the bigger crime and the money will be waiting for him when he is released from prison. But can he really trust his new partner in crime? And will his long-suffering wife wait another 18 months to be with her man?Although it contains an intriguing idea – deliberately getting caught for a small crime to disguise a large one – Un Uomo Da Rispettare is generally a lacklustre and disappointing affair. There's a good car chase halfway through and Douglas is in decent form as the villain, but apart from these scant pickings the film doesn't amount to much. The characters are thinly developed and hard to care for; Morricone's score is unexceptional (by Morricone standards, anyway); the robbery itself lacks any true sense of tension due to a confused and under-developed build-up. There are far better examples of these crime caper-style films out there… this one is for genre aficionados and Kirk Douglas completists only.

zardoz-13 This entertaining 'crime-does-not-pay' European heist caper pits mastermind safe-cracker Kirk Douglas against his trapeze artist sidekick Giuliano Gemma as well as his former Teutonic criminal underworld boss Wolfgang Preiss. "Goliath and the Sins of Babylon" director Michele Lupo's suspenseful yarn boasts intrigue, betrayal, and a demolition-derby car chase in Hamburg, Germany, as our hero sets out to pull another one of those formulaic fool-proof last jobs. "Un uomo da rispettare" benefits from the terrific widescreen cinematography of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" lenser Tonino Delli Colli and his use of 'Dutch' tilt angles. Composer Ennio Morricone contributes a minimalist orchestral score while Lupo relies on Mozart's Symphony 40 in two scenes. The twist is that our anti-heroic protagonist stages one robbery but plans to be caught for another robbery so as throw the German police and the villains off the scent. Naturally, nothing goes as planned in this ingenious but familiar caper. Like Richard Brooks' crime caper "Dollars" (1971), Lupo's film focuses on a bank that contain ultra-sophisticated security systems to safeguard their assets."Un uomo da rispettare" opens with marked police cars rampaging around the city while Detective Hoffman (Reinhard Kolldehoff of "Shout at the Devil") transports convicted career criminal Steve Wallace (Kirk Douglas of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") home to his wife Anna (Florinda Bolkan of "The Last Valley") after having served three years in prison. No sooner does the police car leave Wallace in front of his house than a carload of thugs cruise up. One of the ruffians informs Wallace that their boss, Miller (Wolfgang Preiss of "Raid on Rommel"), wants to talk to him. Reluctantly, Wallace accompanies them to see the well-heeled Miller in his huge office above a casino. Miller surrounds himself with an array of electronic gadgets to present his proposition for a heist with a million dollar payday. "I've got a job only you can do," he explains. "Now, listen carefully, you must knock out this alarm system. It's called 'Big Ben.' If it goes off, the whole city can hear it." Miller shows Wallace the vault on the top floor where the International Insurance Company has a cool million. "Now I know you can handle this safe, Steve, but Big Ben is the problem. The buzzing of a fly, a footstep, a deep breath is enough to trip the alarm." Miller pauses and then observes in an effort to entice Wallace. "Nobody has ever thought of it before." Wallace refuses flatly to pull the job for Miller. Before he worked for Miller, Wallace never encountered trouble. He wound up serving three years in prison when he did his first job for Miller. Nevertheless, Wallace tours the building and finds the edifice decked out with surveillance galore. He heads up to the top floor to snoop around but the disembodied voice of a woman interrupts him. He tells her that he has an appointment with Mr. Schmitt. The woman at a central control desk tells him that Schmitt's office is located on the second floor. Miller's rough-hewn henchman (Romano Puppo of "Death Rides A Horse") spots him leaving the building. He tries to persuade Wallace to see Miller again. Wallace refuses. While they are talking, a young man in an old jalopy, Marco (Giuliano Gemma), pulls up behind the henchman and honks at him. The two tangle in a rough and tumble fight with Marco demonstrating his agility. Miller's man brandishes a pistol. Wallace intervenes and knocks the gun out of the thug's fist.Wallace and Marco become fast friends as a result of this chance encounter. Wallace convinces Anna he can steal millions without being held accountable if he stages one robbery but takes the fall for another lesser robbery. If everything goes according to plan, Wallace calculates that--under German law--he will only serve 18 months from robbing a pawn shop. Unfortunately, Marco relies too heavily on his switchblade knife. Earlier, Wallace warns Marco sternly about this predilection. Director Lupo does a good job of staging the International Insurance safe-cracking job. Wallace decides to pull the job in the afternoon rather than at night. He slips into the building just after it has closed and looks like just another businessman with a bag that contains his instruments. Meantime, Anna makes appropriate phone calls at the precise moments to distract the uniformed guards while our hero sets up an array of gadgets to warn him when the guards are making their rounds. He uses Mozart music to skillfully distract the 'Big Ben' alarm system. Furthermore, after he gains access to the vault room, Wallace sprinkles powder on the push-buttons that must be punched according to a sequence to raise the circular vault out of the floor. He uses the powder to determine which buttons have fingerprints on them. Pretty savvy!!! Unfortunately, the best laid plans go awry when poor Marco kills the guard. You'd think after his knock down, drag-out brawl with Miller's henchman that Marco could have beaten the guard and left him unconscious. That isn't the point. The guard must be found down and at the last moment so that it comes as a complete surprise to Wallace."Un uomo da rispettare" is one of those crime caper films made after the demise of the Production Code. Earlier, Hollywood as well as European films would never allow criminals to escape with their ill-gotten gains. This would constituted a prescription for anarchy. Filmmakers could not make such a radical, anti-status-quo statement. The idea that 'crime could pay' would have been considered unethical! Cleverly, however, Lupo and scenarists Roberto Leoni, Franco Bucceri, Mino Roli, and Nico Ducci create suspense by letting Wallace get away with one robbery, only to be nabbed for another one! After all, this is a testament to Wallace's brilliance as a safe-cracker. The slam-bang car chase between Marco and Miller's lieutenant around Hamburg is amusing.

deraadt It may interest some to know that the score was composed by spaghetti-western and crime flick master Ennio Morricone. For some reason this goes unlisted on the DVD I own but is stated on the beginning credits (and the IMDb file).The scoring often follows a somewhat formulaic approach that has been taken to quite a few of these films (i.e. recapitulate the theme endlessly), but there are high points. An example would be long scene preceding the film's conclusion, when Wallace is running through a coal factory.The film itself is fairly entertaining, if not for the antiquated technologies regarded as cutting edge, and Douglas' sharp suits. Features some fairly hairy car-chases esp. considering the lack of special effects but long (and decidedly cheesy) romantic interludes with Anna.Not spoiling ANYTHING, the movie actually has a great twist and is fairly suspenseful as the characters plan to execute the biggest heist in town.

fandangonoir I recently got this on DVD and I was surprised that it is not a half bad heist film! This might seem at first glance to be a low budget European flick, but if you stick with it there are some decent fight scenes, one pretty cool car chase (made the way when car chases really WERE car chases and not just done with crap computer effects like parts of the Gone In Sixty Seconds remake, where the drivers don't appear to be in any real jeopardy) and a surprisingly good heist story complete with some good plot twists and turns.The film is dated in parts but all in all it holds up quite well. And Kirk Douglas gives a good performance as an over the hill thief wanting to pull one last score. All in all, The Master Touch is not bad way to spend an afternoon. Ciao, ciao, baby.