Almost Human (1974)

- Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare
Milian is Brilliant, 4 August 2005

Given my limited experience with Italian crime/cop films, this is easily the best I've seen. Tomas Milian is Giulio Sacchi, a small time crook with big time dreams. He shows no hesitation or remorse when it comes to killing. He will kill anyone who he thinks is in his way. He even kills a policeman for the change from a cigarette machine. He hatches a plan to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy man. That's when all hell breaks loose. Anyone, and I mean anyone, in his way had better watch out.

Almost Human is incredibly violent. At times, I was reminded of vicious nature of movies like The Last House on the Left. It's that sadistic. One of my "favorite" moments has to be when Sacchi and his pals tie three people from a chandelier and torment them physically and sexually before finally filling their bodies with bullets. It's an incredibly brutal scene that goes a long way to showing how demented Sacchi really is.

Milian has always been a favorite of mine, but the more I see of his work, I become even more impressed. While I may have liked his portrayal of Rambo in Syndicate Sadists more, there's no denying how good he is at playing Sacchi. The rest of the cast is also very good. Henry Silva, as the cop who won't stop, and Anita Strindberg, as the doomed girlfriend, really standout.

9/10