STREET PEOPLE (GLI ESECUTORI/THE SICILIAN CROSS/THE EXECUTIONER)
(director/writer: Maurice Lucidi; screenwriters: story by Maurice Lucidi, Roberto Leoni & Franco Bucceri/Nicola Badalucco/Randal Kleiser/Ernest Tidyman; cinematographer: Aiace Parolin; editor: Renzo Lucidi; music: Luis Bacalov ; cast: Roger Moore (Ulysses), Stacy Keach (Charlie Hanson), Ivo Garrani (Salvatore Francesco), Fausto Tozzi (Nicoletta), Ettore Manni (Bishop Lopetri), Ennio Balbo (Continenza), Luigi Casellato (Pete); Runtime: 92; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Manolo Bolognini /Luigi Borghese; AIP/Vestron (MGM); 1976-Italy-in Italian, dubbed in English)
“A routine mindless Mafia pic that just doesn’t make sense.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A routine mindless Mafia pic that just doesn’t make sense. It veers between Sicily and San Francisco. Director Maurice Lucidi(“Stateline Motel”/”The Designated Victim”/”Hercules the Avenger“) bases it on the story he wrote with Roberto Leoni & Franco Bucceri. William Garroni also directs a few scenes. Included among the six listed screenwriters are Randal Kleiser (Grease director) & Ernest Tidyman (French Connection screenwriter). The starring roles are played by English speaking stars, while the rest of the cast is Italian. It features the usual generic wiseguy talk, chases and shoot-outs.
Ulysses (Roger Moore) is the half-Italian and half-English lawyer, who was raised in Italy. He now works for the Mafia based in San Francisco. He is the nephew of the Mafia don (Ivo Garrani). When three hoods rip off the Mafia’s million dollar shipment of heroin, which was stored in a cross sent to San Francisco from a church in Sicily, the don orders his nephew to track down the thieves. Charlie Hanson (Stacy Keach) is the lawyer’s auto racing pal, who helps to find the drugs and bad guys by checking out all the seedy haunts in town, Ulysses conducts his search in Sicily. When the guys reunite in San Francisco, the crime drama starts to look like a bloody spaghetti western.
There are flashbacks to us in on events and double-crosses.
The story is a mess. The actors seem clueless on how to play their parts. But there’s one very funny sequence, with the fun-loving Stacy Keach in the smashing “car test-drive” scene.
REVIEWED ON 7/15/2015 GRADE: C+ https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/