MANHUNT IN THE CITY

Almost impossible to find, even on the bootleg market, and often confused with Fernando Di Leo's inferior film Manhunt, which also starred Silva, i was really happy to finally find a copy. Silva stars as a land developer (sound familiar?) who's daughter is cold-bloodedly shot to death during a jewl heist, and when the police are slow to act, Silva eventually takes the law into his own hands (sound even more familiar?). well, in case you haven't figured it out, this is an Italian film "inspired" by the success of Death Wish.

In this film however, Silva is REALLY reluctant to go vigilante...his daughter gets shot, he's beat up, his wife is beat up, his friend is killed-yet he still has faith in the police force until the very end. I guess if you think about it, there's some sort of political message in there, but we do't watch Lenzi films for messges now do we?

Manhunt is actually pretty cleverly plotted, if somewhat far fetched-Silva's daughter mentions something about a scorpian before she dies, as a clue to who killed her, so throughout the movie Silva tries to track down someone with a scorpian. He hires a sleazy private detective, but when he gets a lead he winds up with his throat slit and his hands nailed to the walls of his office. Silva then hooks up with a transvestite (what's with all the transvestite in Italian cop movies?) and after beating the shit outta him, pulling off his wig, calling him a "faggot" 500 times and stealing his car, he decides to help Silva out...hey, don't ask me, i just watch 'em.

In a brutal scene, the guy with the scorpian pendant, severely pissed that the tranny is snooping around, bust into his room and rapes him up the ol' brown eye with a gigantic candle!

As all this is going on, Luciano Catenacci, an ex-cop and head of a local vigilante squad, is trying to coerce Silva into joining them, and finding the guys who killed his daughter. At first, Silva chucks them out of his house, but those darn vigilante squads can be pretty insistant. Silva goes on a ride along with the squad, as they bust into the house of two purse snatchers, and beat the tar out of them, and smash their hands. Silva still wants no part of it, but when he finds out that the cop that should have been on duty at the jewlery store was instead driving the commisioner's wife around, he gives in.

Well, i probably shouldn't give the end away, but fuck it. Silva finally tracks down the scorpian, and he calls the cops, telling them that if they don't get down there quick, he's gonna take care of it himself. He waits patiently, but he snaps at the sight of a young girl who looks like his daughter, and goes in blazing, wiping out the whole gang with a shotgun.

The police arrive, and Silva is stunned when the cops let him go, saying that it was self defense. And the final twist, i turns out that the guys Silva killed had nothing to do his his daughter's murder...the guys who did it are sitting on a slab in the morgue!

Surely one of Lenzi's best early crime flicks, pretty solid action all around, as well as some fairly tense moments. Highly recommended if you can track a copy down.

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