Fernando Di Leo was responsible for a trio of absolutely great poliziotteschi films – Milan Calibre 9, The Boss and The Italian Connection. All of them were dynamic and energetic with great characters and inspired action. Unfortunately, Rulers of the City is nowhere near as good and is a significantly lesser movie.
It's about a young, minor protection money collector who carries out a scam to steal 10 million lira from the city's top gangster leading to all-out gang war.
Jack Palance and Edmund Purdom are perhaps the biggest stars here. They both play the respective crime bosses and both are wasted in their roles to be perfectly honest. Purdom only gets to mope around for a bit and then is shot in the head, while Palance should really be a bigger, more threatening presence but he never is. He hovers in the background but never gets to assert his authority very much. The movie is promoted in a way that makes you believe that Palance is the big bad guy but he is killed off way before the end of the climax in a somewhat underwhelming scene. The final shoot-out sequence in the old slaughterhouse is pretty uninvolving in general. The bad guys are pretty hopeless throughout the movie. They are thwarted at every turn easily by the heroes who are three men in a dune buggy (great vehicle to drive around town in when you are trying to keep a low profile by the way). These guys never feel like they are ever under threat and as a result there is little suspense. There is additionally a revenge plot-line running concurrently. It begins with a slow-motion dream-like encounter from the past and the whole thing really reminded me of the sort of plot that you would find in a spaghetti western. But again, it isn't very well done and could actually have been removed entirely with little or no damage to the film at all.
Rulers of the City is a pretty mediocre Italian crime film. It pales by comparison to others in Di Leo's filmography.
It's about a young, minor protection money collector who carries out a scam to steal 10 million lira from the city's top gangster leading to all-out gang war.
Jack Palance and Edmund Purdom are perhaps the biggest stars here. They both play the respective crime bosses and both are wasted in their roles to be perfectly honest. Purdom only gets to mope around for a bit and then is shot in the head, while Palance should really be a bigger, more threatening presence but he never is. He hovers in the background but never gets to assert his authority very much. The movie is promoted in a way that makes you believe that Palance is the big bad guy but he is killed off way before the end of the climax in a somewhat underwhelming scene. The final shoot-out sequence in the old slaughterhouse is pretty uninvolving in general. The bad guys are pretty hopeless throughout the movie. They are thwarted at every turn easily by the heroes who are three men in a dune buggy (great vehicle to drive around town in when you are trying to keep a low profile by the way). These guys never feel like they are ever under threat and as a result there is little suspense. There is additionally a revenge plot-line running concurrently. It begins with a slow-motion dream-like encounter from the past and the whole thing really reminded me of the sort of plot that you would find in a spaghetti western. But again, it isn't very well done and could actually have been removed entirely with little or no damage to the film at all.
Rulers of the City is a pretty mediocre Italian crime film. It pales by comparison to others in Di Leo's filmography.