THE BOSS
Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection
Italy | 1973
Directed by Fernando Di Leo
Starring
Henry Silva
Richard Conte
Antonia Santelli
Color | 110 Minutes | Not Rated
Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC | 4-disc set)
Raro Video
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Review by
Brian Lindsey

Film:7
DVD:8
NOTE: DVD Rating is for entire 4-film set
While the irreverent jokesters of Mystery Science Theater 3000 may have tagged Henry Silva as the scariest man alive with a head shaped like a peanut (MST3K episode #705, Escape 2000), there's simply no denying that he was one of the most intimidating screen heavies ever. That fact is never more evident than in the Italian action/crime film The Boss. It's nigh-on the perfect vehicle for Silva's brand of stone-faced badassery.
    He plays Nick Lanzetta, the top assassin/enforcer for the D'Aniello crime family. We join him on a hit job, already in progress, in the opening minutes of the film. High-ranking members of the rival Attardi clan are enjoying a private screening of a porno flick when Lanzetta rudely interrupts the festivities, firing rifle-grenades from the projection booth. (His methods aren't exactly subtle!) This spectacular mass rub-out not only astonishes the police but drives the surviving members of the Attardis nearly berserk with the thirst for revenge. Attardi operative Cocchi (Pier Paolo Capponi) vows to destroy the D'Aniello family and personally kill Lanzetta for what he has done. A full-scale mob war seems inevitable.
    In retaliation Cocchi has his goons kidnap Rina (Antonia Santelli), the smokin' hot college-age daughter of the D'Aniello chieftain. They don't want money in exchange for her release, though; Don D'Aniello (Claudio Nicastro) and Lanzetta must surrender themselves to Cocchi — to be killed, of course — if the girl is to live. Desperate, Don D'Aniello appeals to his Mafia superior, Don Corrasco (Richard Conte), for help. So sorry about your daughter, the big boss tells him; the proud Sicilians of the D'Aniello family must never submit to the lowlife Attardis from Calabria. If she can't be found before the deadline then his daughter will just have to die. This answer is unacceptable to Don D'Aniello, who genuinely loves Rina. Without Corrasco's knowledge, he agrees to try Lanzetta's plan: stall for time (by offering huge amounts of money) while Lanzetta works on locating and rescuing the girl. Meanwhile, our nubile kidnap victim — turns out she's a "hopped-up nympho" hippy chick — is willingly engaging in drunken sex parties with her kidnappers. Riddled with turncoats and informers, both the D'Aniello and Attardi clans begin to fall apart at the seams even as they battle each other...
    The Boss (released in the U.S. as Wipeout!) and the other poliziotteschi titles in this box set are, at their core, exploitation pictures — violence and sleaze predominate. Body counts are very high, with most of the characters winding up dead by film's end; women are good for either slapping around or shagging, usually in that order. But director Fernando Di Leo always manages to keep one foot firmly planted in reality. He never lets the action go over the top (you won't see the protagonist jumping a motorcycle over burning cars), and if the characters aren't particularly deep they're at least not cardboard cutouts. Di Leo is chiefly interested with the various classes of people within the Mafia organizational structure, from the lowest-level street hood to the top ranking capo, and how they interact. He seems especially fascinated with how men who place such grave importance on honor and loyalty can nevertheless betray each other in a heartbeat if the price is right or their necks are on the line. Politics and social questions are addressed, but they're given far less emphasis than in the crime films of Damiano Damiani (Confessions of a Police Captain, How to Kill a Judge), which are mainly concerned with government corruption and almost completely devoid of action set-pieces. Di Leo is more commercially minded than that, aware that the movie-going public at large would rather see a gritty shoot-out or a beautiful woman stripped naked than listen to a long-winded discussion of Mafia influence in the justice ministry.
    Di Leo's visual style is less flashier than many of his Italian contemporaries, employing a relatively straightforward directorial approach. Apart from the occasional tilt-angle, rack focus or handheld close-up he keeps things fairly simple. This suits The Boss very well. The brisk pace only falters whenever the story shifts from the mobsters to the police, represented by a corrupt commissioner (Gianno Garko) and his administrative superior (Vittorio Caprioli, in an irritatingly affected performance); a good portion of these scenes aren't really necessary and briefly stall the movie in its tracks. Leave it to Henry Silva, though, to kick things up a notch. His Lanzetta is a textbook example of how a particular actor's screen presence can flesh out a somewhat limited character. Either icily calm or royally pissed (with seemingly no emotions in between), Silva's nihilistic anti-hero totally dominates the film. It's one of his best, most memorable roles.
The Boss comes to North American DVD as part of the Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection, the first U.S. release from Italian company Raro Video. The other films in the box set are Caliber 9 (1972), The Italian Collection (AKA Manhunt, also '72) — which along with The Boss form Di Leo's "Milieu Trilogy", a Mafia saga connected only by theme and subject matter — and the less serious Rulers of the City (AKA Mr. Scarface, 1976). The DVDs are housed in individual slim-line cases with title-specific cover art.
    All four films are presented in their original 1.85:1 aspect ratio although Rulers of the City is not 16x9 enhanced (the other three, to include The Boss, are thankfully anamorphic). Looking very good to excellent, I really don't have a negative thing to say about their quality. Audio tracks are available in both English and Italian mono, backed by first-rate (optional) English subtitles. The Italian tracks tend to sound somewhat fuller and cleaner but the English audio allows one to hear the American actors (Silva, for example) speaking in their own voices.
    Six featurettes (English subtitled) are spread out across the discs, encompassing Di Leo as filmmaker, his influences, production of the individual movies and even some history of Italian organized crime in the '70s. (Unfortunately, audio for the featurette accompanying The Boss, Stories of the Mafia, is woefully out of sync.) Di Leo, who died in 2003, offers his own memories and opinions not only via the clips contained in the featurettes but also in a glossy illustrated booklet containing a lengthy print interview. Additionally, a step-through biography and filmography of Di Leo is present on each DVD; a photo gallery with commentary by actor Gastone Moschin is found on the Caliber 9 disc. (NOTE: A stand-alone edition of The Boss will be released in June 2011.) 3/18/11
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