The Last Round (1976)

- Il conto è chiuso
A very familiar story, 27 November 2005

Carlos Monzon (World Middleweight Boxing Champion for over 7 years) is Marco Russo, a stranger in town looking for a job. He learns that the only real work is with one of the two competing crime families that run the city. Marco gets a job as a heavy for one of the groups and quickly proves to be very valuable. But it's not long before Marco is scheming to turn the two crime families against each other. Marco's actions result in a full-scale gang war. But what is Marco's motivation? Is it purely financial or is there something more?

If any of my poorly written plot synopsis sounds familiar then you've probably seen Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (or Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, a movie that I shamefully haven't seen even though I've owned the Criterion disc for about two years). I wouldn't go so far as to call it a modern day remake, but the two movies do share some major similarities. And the similarities go beyond the obvious plot structure and include what I consider to be minor plot points. For example, Marco helps a woman and her daughter escape from one of the crime bosses, Rico Manzetti (Luc Merenda), who has been using them for his sexual gratification. Clint Eastwood's character did the exact same thing in A Fistful of Dollars.

The Last Round starts out fairly slowly as Marco gains a feel for how things operate. But once the bullets start flying, the movie rarely lets up. Merenda plays his role as the sadistic crime boss Manzetti to perfection. He's decidedly evil and, fortunately for those watching the movie, shows it at every opportunity. The movie eventually builds to the inevitable and very satisfying showdown between Marco and Rico.

NoShame's new Region 1 DVD is another winner. Although the transfer does show some print damage in a couple of instances, it doesn't appear to be the fault or lack of interest on the part of NoShame. Most of the image is very good. Overall, this is a must for fans of Italian crime films.

7/10