Caliber 9

Ugo Piazza comes out after three years inside and his old organisation is waiting: money is missing and everyone assumes he took it. He says nothing, denies nothing, and simply waits. Fernando Di Leo's film is among the coldest of Italian crime cinema, with violence that is sudden and settles nothing, and nobody talking their way out. Gastone Moschin plays Ugo almost expressionless while Mario Adorf plays the man following him, and the distance between the two generates the tension. Osanna wrote the score, producing a sound rarely heard in Italian cinema of the period. The reversal at the end is one of the harshest closings in the genre. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies Italian crime films and hard noir. Who it is not for: anyone wanting explanation, since the film withholds the information to the last moment.