Contraband (Lucio Fulci, 1980)
"With the cigarettes, you've been eating pizza and chips... I'm offering you caviar and champagne"
Set in Naples, Contraband is a grimy, nasty little poliziottesco from the mind of Lucio Fulci: The Godfather of Gore™
Cigarette smuggler Luca Aiello has a comfortable life with his comfortable wife, until one day his brother Michele gets killed by a gang of cocaine dealers who want to take over the crime syndicate. This triggers (if you pardon the expression) an all out turf war between the Camorra & the rival gang led by a mysterious Frenchman known as 'the marsigliese' (Marcel Bozzuffi, the killer from The French Connection).
After a fairly pedestrian, nay, even boring first half an hour, Contraband suddenly turns very nasty and ultra-violent, with Fulci going gore-gore crazy, adding enough exploding heads and gratuitous nudity to bring exploitation fans to the boil.
Released in 2014 in the UK by Shameless, this uncut DVD release features the original Italian audio as well as the American dub. I'm always going to go for the original audio, and the Italian track suits the film nicely. Be warned though, that it's really shitty quality, especially the loud hum during the interior scenes. Occasionally the audio switches to American English, but I still prefer the Italian option. Kudos for shameless to add this, even if they did find it in a skip somewhere.
Contraband is dirty and very, very nasty, but I enjoyed it a great deal. Fabio Testi in the lead is very good as is the rest of the cast. It's an authentic slice of ultra-violent poliziotteschi action. And just love that cover!
