Italy was going through a state of political unrest and social change in the late sixties and early seventies that reached a defining moment in 1969 when a terrorist's bomb exploded in Milan's Piazza Fontana, killing sixteen people. Ordine Nuovo (New Order), a right wing group of anarchists, were blamed for the crime and during police interrogation a railroad worker, Giuseppe Pinelli, died mysteriously in a fall from an upper story window. When Pinelli's death was ruled a suicide, there was an enormous outcry of public protest from students and fellow workers, setting off a wave of kidnappings, strikes, and more bombings that reached a peak in 1978 when the terrorist group Brigate Rossa (Red Brigade) abducted and killed Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Almost Human, now available from NoShame Films in an immaculate DVD transfer, captures this violent period in both tone and attitude as it follows Giulio Sacchi, a two-bit hoodlum, who hatches a plot to score a cool half a billion lire.
As played by Tomas Milian, Sacchi is a low-life slum with little respect for human life (hence the film's title) and his behavior could be best described as psychopathic, veering from sleazy charm to extreme sadism. When he is first introduced in Almost Human, he is driving the getaway car at the scene of a robbery but botches the job when he shoots a cop who stops him for questioning. Although the gang makes a daring escape, Sacchi is expelled from the group after a savage beating. Undeterred, he quickly bounces back with a plan that will make him rich and the envy of the Milan underworld. With the help of two equally amoral accomplices, Sacchi plots the abduction for ransom of Mary Lou Perrino (Laura Belli), the daughter of a rich industrialist. He is also aided by his girlfriend Ionia (Anita Strindberg) who unwittingly provides him with a car and crucial information for the kidnapping (she works for the industrialist). The film crosses over into nightmare territory once the trio stalk and attack their victim and her fiancé in a remote wooded area; the boyfriend is machine-gunned and Mary Lou escapes to a neighboring villa where she is followed. Sacchi and his cohorts burst in on the scene transforming an intimate party into a sick parlor game. Eventually the trio and their hostage end up in a secret hideaway while police inspector Walter Grandi (Henry Silva) tries to apprehend the criminals before they murder Mary Lou - a certainty based on Sacchi's trail of corpses.
While Almost Human is most definitely exploitation fare, it has a nasty kick to it that might not satisfy viewers expecting a more traditional cops and robbers thriller. The good guys don't win. The cavalry doesn't ride in to save the day. In fact, everybody loses. There isn't really even a standard hero to root for. Henry Silva, the determined cop on the case, is always one step behind Sacchi and by the end of the film has been outwitted by the criminal and an inept city bureaucracy. His only recourse is to pull a "Dirty Harry" and take the law into his own hands, sacrificing his career for an act of revenge. Sacchi may get his just desserts in the final scene but there's little satisfaction in it. There's also the realization that there are plenty more Sacchis in the world, bred by poverty, deprivation and the desperate nature of life on the bottom rungs of society.
Interviewed in one of the DVD's featurettes, Umberto Lenzi, the director of Almost Human, doesn't think this film qualifies as a poliziotteschi. He thinks of it as a film noir and was partly inspired by the work of another Italian director, Fernando Di Leo, whose crime thrillers resemble the post-WWII noirs that came out of Hollywood, films like La Mala Ordina (1972) and Il Boss (1973). To be honest, Almost Human is actually closer in tone to a horror film with Tomas Milian behaving like a rampaging monster who's escaped from the laboratory. [SPOILER ALERT] Death comes quickly and in surprising ways in this film - from the torture/massacre of the rich bourgeoisie in the villa (even a small child is murdered) to Sacchi's lakeside murder of his girlfriend who knows too much.
Of course, a great deal of the film's raw and unpolished effectiveness is due to Milian's rabid performance. The Cuban born actor is just now coming into his own after years of working unnoticed (at least by American audiences) in an astonishing variety of films. Certainly the DVD market has helped Milian achieve a rising cult status thanks to the release of some of his earlier features, everything from his appearance as an aristocratic playboy in the Luchino Visconti episode of Boccaccio '70 (1962) to his scroungy misfit in the spaghetti Western Run Man Run (1968) to his cameo appearances in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) and Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000).
NoShame's DVD release of Almost Human looks great and was remastered in high definition from the original vault 2P Negative. The extra features include the original trailer, a poster and still gallery, liner notes, and two featurettes, "Like a Beast...Almost" (including interviews with director Lenzi, co-stars Ray Lovelock and Gino Santercole and writer Ernesto Gastaldi) and "Milian Unleashed," a conversation with the actor. The former featurette is somewhat disappointing as the discussion covers a number of topics but very little behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Almost Human except for Lenzi's comments that Milian's performance was partially fueled by alcohol and stimulants and that the part played by Henry Silva was originally intended for Richard Conte (he died the day the producer called to offer him the part). The Milian featurette also rambles all over the place and you certainly couldn't accuse the actor of not having an ego; he alternates between being arrogant and humble but this dichotomy is what also works so well for him on screen as an actor. Anyone interested in Milian or the poliziotteschi genre should check out Almost Human which still retains some of its power to shock and disturb even today.
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by Jeff Stafford
