This time round John Cassavetes plays an armed robber who is strictly professional in his approach. He doesn't kill anyone, gets the job done, and gets home in time to take his girlfriend and his son to the circus. He's a good guy who's taken the wrong path in life, but we all know that this lifestyle catches up those who live it.
His young partner is part of the problem. Enrico is very trigger happy and borderline psychotic, and when the cops set up a sting to catch the two of them robbing a place, he guns down two people, one of whom is a cop. Enrico isn't known to the police so the cops instead go after and capture Cassavetes, at once revealing his double life to his unsuspecting girlfriend and opening up an opportunity for Enrico to both get his own gang together and hit on Cassavetes' girlfriend.
Cassavetes won't spill the beans on Enrico, even when the cops lay the double murder on him, and the film shifts focus from his to Enrico's attempts at becoming an established robber in his own right, which leads to more murder, double crossings, rape, and showdown involving helicopters and pure man-rage.
Although it's a little overlong (being an Alberto De Martino film after all) this one is quite nicely paced, with another strong performance from Cassavetes. Although he's sidelined halfway through the film, the guy playing Enrico nicely carries the film as he proves he's too mental to be as successful as Cassavetes. Nice backup from the supporting cast too.
It's nowhere near as extreme as the Eurocrime films of the mid-sevenites, but De Martino does throw in the gun fights and car chases you'll be expecting. It doesn't have as many slow spots as his other films either, so that's a bonus.
Rome is used to good effect to - so you'll see the Piazza Navona, Coliseum and the EUR.
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