Street Law

In Enzo G. Castellari's film, Franco Nero plays Carlo Antonelli, an engineer taken hostage during a bank robbery who, after being beaten and humiliated, sees that the police will do nothing. He starts looking for the robbers himself, and the search takes him into the underworld and finally into a shootout in a warehouse. Because it appeared the same year as Death Wish it was long treated as an imitation. The two in fact stand in different places. Bronson's character becomes an effective executioner; Nero's remains incompetent, is beaten repeatedly, is frightened, and the film shows plainly that what he is doing is not healing him. Castellari does not offer revenge as a solution. Barbara Bach and Giancarlo Prete are in the cast. The Italian title means the citizen rebels and connects directly to the atmosphere of insecurity in Italy at the time. Who it is for: viewers who like the poliziotteschi and seventies Italian crime cinema. Who it is not for: anyone wanting satisfaction from a revenge story, which the film deliberately withholds.