Franco Nero gets dark and broody in this moody, grim kidnapping film to the point that even his HAIR is darker than usual. Sadly, an unforgivable act of animal cruelty right at the start of this one sours the whole deal, but we'll get to that later.
Set in Sardinia, we find a skeletal Charlotte Rampling getting dumped in the middle of nowhere while her student boyfriend is kidnapped by a bunch of mysterious paesani. The kidnappers outrageously demand 80 million lire for the return of the son, and his landowner father has to sell off his land in order to raise the ransom. It's lucky that rich businessman Frank Wolff offers to buy it, eh?
The kidnapped fella's best mate, jumper wearing Franco Nero, smells a rat* and starts devising a plan of his own. He also hooks up with Charlotte Rampling for a bit of moody swearing, slapping around, and horizontal bopping while Charlotte looks totally bewildered by all the strange things happening around her and almost derails everything by getting the police involved...
One thing you'll notice about this film is that there's a ton of hand-held camera work in it that gives it a kind of woozy, Bourne Identity type edge. On the other hand, there's very little action so all that hand held stuff doesn't really go anywhere. This is a film about people staring at each other, from Nero staring at Rampling, or his own father, or the father of the kidnapped guy, to the father of the kidnapped guy staring at his wife, and so on and so forth.
What I'm trying to say is that this is another character driven late sixties Eurocrime film that will probably try your patience. Or maybe it was the fact that a few minutes into the film someone drove a car straight into a herd of sheep, for real. There was no need for that whatsoever, is there?
*rats actually smell quite pleasant. This film is not to be confused with the 1975 Greek film Island of Death, which far transcends the boundaries of good taste. We'll get to that in due course.
