Almost Human

Giulio is a small time criminal. He robs, he beats people, and what he gets is never enough. Then an idea takes him: kidnapping pays better. He picks the daughter of a rich industrialist. He brings in two friends. The plan is bad from the start; Giulio is angry, unplanned and impatient. A witness is killed during the abduction. Then another. While the ransom is being negotiated the number of killings rises. Inspector Grandi is after him and his powers are limited; he stays a step behind every time. Umberto Lenzi directs. Tomas Milian plays Giulio and Henry Silva the inspector; Laura Belli is in the cast. It is an Italian production, made in 1974. The film belongs to the crime vein that spread in Italy in the seventies; the rise in crime in the country was the starting point for those films. The music is by Ennio Morricone. The matter it treats is justice failing to work; the film presents the law as an obstacle, a view common in the genre at the time. Tomas Milian makes the character sympathetic nowhere; he is coarse, cowardly and merciless. The narrative shows the violence openly and ran into censorship. The ending gives the genre's usual resolution and that resolution is contested. The narrative uses Milan in real locations. Its limit is its outlook; the narrative is harsh, its politics troubling, and the violence excessive. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian crime films of the seventies. Who it is not for: it is harsh, bleak, and its outlook contested.