How sad is this?

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Contraband (1980) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Luca DiAngelo (Fabio Testi) is a loving husband who also just happens to be a cigarette smuggler. After his brother is assassinated he sets out for revenge and learns of a new family pushing cocaine and trying to take over the streets.Lucio Fulci was coming off his success of ZOMBIE when his career got a jump start, which led to a number of graphic horror movies. The director was also able to return to the EuroCrime genre with this film, which obviously isn't in the same league as THE GODFATHER but there's no question that if you like non-stop violence and gore then there's plenty of that here.Fulci would become known as "The Godfather of Gore" and this film here delivers exactly that. In fact, the gore is so over-the-top and shocking that I think it takes away from what little story is actually in. Some of the gore is so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh as if you were watching some nutty action picture. There's one woman who gets her face melted with a blow torch. There's another sequence where about a quart of blood and massive guts come flying from a shotgun blast to the stomach. There's one sequence where nothing happens but one death scene after another.The violence and gore is certainly what separates this from other films of this genre. The story itself is rather blame as you've basically got another mix between THE GODFATHER and DEATH WISH but Testi is always worth watching and he offers up a fine performance here. CONTRABAND certainly isn't a masterpiece but it's slightly entertaining as long as you don't mind sleaze and violence.

***SPOILERS**** Extremely brutal and violent crime Mafia movie taking place in Naples Italy involving a gang of illegal cigarettes traffickers with members of the French Mafia who are trying to take over their speed boat smuggling operation. The French Mafia kingpin Il Marsigliese or Marciasia for short played by "French Connection" hit man Marcel Bozzuffi plans to replace the smokes or cigarettes with heroin being shipped in that's being processes in Germany and addict the entire population of the city of Naples. It's the Di Angelo brothers Luca & Mickey who run the cigarette smuggling operation who refuse to provide their services as well as speed boats to Il Marsigliese' goons that have them targeted from elimination by him.Il Marsigliese using fellow cigarette smuggler the pansy like and playboy Perlante to set up Luca Di Angelo, who's brother Sammy was murdered by his goons, as well as his fellow cigarette smugglers, that are gathered at his mansion, for a major hit Il Marsigliese who's hiding in a closet gives himself away with the smell of the very pungent after shave he's wearing. That ends up giving Luca a chance to escape the carnage before the shooting starts. It's when Il Marsigliese' goons kidnap Luca's wife Adele and hold her as a hostage, while brutally beating and raping her, that he gets the help of the local Mafia Dons who are still left alive, after all the carnage, who set up a trap for Il Marsigliese' men with the brave Luca using himself as bait.***SPOILERS*** Far more violent and bloody then all the three "Godfather" movies put together "Contraband" never lets up in the action and some of it is way over the top. Especially when it comes to the women in the film who in once case has her face burned off with a blow torch courtesy of the deranged sadist Il Marsigliese and another Luca's wife Adele getting viciously worked over by him as well as raped by his #1 henchman Nello. That with Luca being forced to listen in on all this while on the other end of the telephone line. Luca with the help of the Naple Mafia Dons does get his revenge by wiping out Il Marsigliese' goons, both French & Italian,in a mob style like ambush. And finally with Luca chasing him down to a waterfront garbage dump and blasting him and leaving Il Marsiqiese there to be taken or hauled away by the Naples sanitation department together with the morning trash.

Lucio Fulci brings his unique brand of sadism to this okay entry into the Eurocrime genre. Fabio Testi stars as Luca Di Angelo, a cigarette smuggler / family man who does have some principles. His organization is now constantly being threatened by rival outfits who want to control the drug traffic in the area. Luca is ready for revenge when one of the first victims is his brother Mickey (Enrico Maisto), but the bad guys, led by the power hungry Marsigliese (Marcel Bozzuffi) up their game when they decide to kidnap Lucas' wife and son.The script, credited to four people (including Fulci) is ultimately very routine. There's nothing special about any of the characters, even if they are entertainingly played. Testi, as always, is a rugged and studly "hero". The joy here lies in the fact that the movie is so utterly violent. A face is burned to a crisp with a torch, a throat is torn open, a head is shot apart, and bodies are continuously riddled with bullet holes.Supporting Mr. Testi are Ivana Monti as Lucas' wife, Saverio Marconi as the cocky young mafia man Perlante, Fabrizio Jovine as a police chief, and Ajita Wilson as Luisa. The actors are fine, especially Mr. Bozzuffi as a thoroughly nasty and despicable villain.The action set pieces are not spectacular, but they are fun, and Fulci gives this trashy story (complete with full frontal female nudity as well as gore) decent pacing and a visceral appeal.Fans of Fulcis' bloody horror films from this period may also like this feature.Look for Fulci near the end in a cameo as one of the gunmen.Seven out of 10.

Easygoing Naples cigarette contraband smuggler Luca Di Angelo (a solid performance by the handsome and charismatic Fabio Testi) ain't having an easy time of it: his beautiful, but fed-up wife (the luscious Ivana Monti) can't stand his law-breaking lifestyle, the zealous local police are closing in for an arrest, and ruthless narcotics baron the Marsiguese (a splendidly hateful'n'heinous villainous turn by Marcel Bozzufi of "The French Connection") wants Luca and his fellow smugglers to start peddling hard drugs. Things go from bad to worse after Luca's brother gets rubbed out, leading to an all-out ferocious turf war in which various criminals gets bumped off in assorted grisly ways.Lucio Fulci compensates for the occasionally poky pacing, a rather tedious opening third and the grinding predictability of the standard crime/action thriller scenario by pouring on the excessively gory and gruesome graphic carnage with his customary rough and lingering aplomb: One guy gets tossed into a pit of sulfuric acid, another dude has his brains blown out, a lovely lady courier has her face viciously disfigured with a Bunsen burner, yet another fellow has his stomach blasted wide open, and countless crooks bleed several pints worth of blood when they get filled full of bullets. In a particularly nasty scene Luca is forced to helplessly listen over the phone as the Marsiguese's brutish goons savagely rape and defile his screaming'n'squirming abducted wife. It's these foul, harsh, exceedingly gritty and unflinchingly nihilistic touches that distinguish this hard-hitting feature and lift it well out of the rut of your run-of-the-mill generic crime opus. Topped off with a rousing climax and a perfectly bleak bummer ending (Luca gets his revenge, but it comes at a horrible and substantial personal price), this no-holds-barred cruel and wicked film rates as one of Fulci's most unjustly neglected and underrated movies.