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Redneck (1972)

Dir: Silvio Narizzano

A messy armed robbery at a jewellery store sees the two robbers, Mosquito (Franco Nero) and the truly psychotic Memphis (Telly Savalas with an outrageous Southern accent) flee the scene in a fashion as messed up as the actual heist.
When their getaway car (driven by Mosquito's girlfriend Maria, Ely Galleani) crashes they steal another car without knowing that Lennox Duncan (Mark Lester), the 13 year old Son of a prominent United Nations diplomat, is hiding in the back seat.

Lennox's Mother identifies Memphis and Mosquito and so kidnapping is added to their list of crimes and soon they are #1 on the 'Most Wanted' list.

When they finally notice that Lennox is in the car things get very complicated and go from bad to much. much worse…

This obscure, but recently re-released on a budget DVD, Euro thriller has some delirious components, most notably the acting and the characters, but is low on real thrills and high on scenery chewing and strangeness.

And on the subject of acting, let us start with Savalas who turns in such a manic and over the top performance as the murderous Memphis that it makes his 'Maggot' character from "The Dirty Dozen" seem the height of low key sophistication. His accent alone pushes the viewer's eardrums to their limits with his demented 'Redneck' drawl.
Luckily, though almost any seriousness is blown to the four winds, the character is so ham fisted he becomes a trashy treat to be savoured.

The ever welcome Nero is pretty much pushed into the shadows by Savalas's wanton mugging, but he has just enough moments of craziness (as character and actor) that he at least compliments Savalas in creating two of the most blackly comic, deranged, bull in a china shop criminals ever put on screen.

Ely Galleani is pretty much a token female moll but her far more restrained performance does help anchor some of the dialogue scenes so they don't completely float away in the hot air generated by Nero and Savalas.

Lester is almost invisible (literally as well as figuratively) for much of the film, but his hushed English tones do provide a welcome bit of aural normality for the ears. He has little to do in general but in his few key scenes he does a perfectly effective job. And as in "What the Peeper Saw" and "Who Slew Auntie Roo" he knows how to take a seemingly normal child character and turn it into something faintly unsettling and very weird.

And amazingly, be it the lead characters or the people they come across, almost no one in the film can be called 'normal'. This is a world populated by the lost, the mad, the weird and the generally damaged. Even a dog they meet has to have a crippled leg!

As with many Euro crime films there is, as well as a heightened degree of general insanity, an element of sleaze. And in the case of "Redneck" that comes in the form of Lennox's awaking sexuality.
Lester plays these uncomfortable moments well and the scene of him and a fully naked Nero in fire-lit bedroom are creepy and unsettling to say the least. This is then followed (after Nero has left) by Lester stripping off and looking at is own body, as unseen eyes look on, and the whole thing makes for slightly uneasy viewing.

The biggest fault with the movie is the fractured and messy way the plot unfolds. The film shoots off in all directions as characters join up, leave and then join up again in dizzying confusion.
The characters also tend to spend too much time in the first half ranting in their dark car (a very dark car, which is either bad cinematography or more likely a bad print) or on dark roadsides and sadly it's to the detriment of the film's pacing.
The endless hammy arguments and mental explosions from Savalas start to wear the viewer down and you find yourself praying for some sunlight, and some of the kind of action seen in the opening, to progress the plot along and inject the film with the same manic energy the actors are showing as they basically leave the movie behind.
Some of these dark, shouted scenes are also pretty important to how the plot develops as the bond between the characters falls apart so much concentration is needed to follow what's going on as screaming voices come out from almost pitch blackness.

There are moments worth highlighting though like the violent robbery and getaway, a great sequence where Memphis terrorises a family of German tourists with unexpected, delightfully sick results, Nero in a very unsubtle ladies fur coat, and the frantic finale. There are some nice looking sequences in the snow gripped countryside as well, that are a welcome relief from the dark and claustrophobic early scenes.

But overall it's a messy, chaotic screaming match that relies on it's few trashy moments and elements to hold the interest. There is fun to be had here for sure, and it's worth catching for Savalas's berserk performance, but it could have been an awful lot better with a much tighter hand on the directorial reins and either better cinematography or a better transfer.