Bezenby Yet another winner from Umberto Lenzi, one of the masters of the Italian Crime movie (and there are many). For this one, he focuses mainly on the exploits of Guilio (Tomas Milian), a psychopath out for that one big score, who struggles to keep his insanity in check.Julio's just botched a bank job by getting a bit paranoid and killing a traffic cop, and after receiving a well-deserved kicking from some gangsters, he heads off to his girlfriend's house to mooch some cash. When not getting a kicking or mooching, Guilio hangs around with his petty thief mates, preaching about a big score. After killing yet another cop while being caught stealing from a cigarette machine, Julio stumbles upon his plan – to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman and hold her for ransom. He's got two problems with this plan. The first problem is that Cop Henry Silva is on his trail ever since the murder of the cop at the cigarette machine. The second problem is that Guilio is a complete psycho and kills without thought, leaving a trail of bodies for Silva to find. Silva himself has a problem – he's a victim of the apathy and red tape of the Italian crime system and his fury grows every time he's held back from stomping all over Guilio's head. Although Almost Human is violent and sleazy, it's not as over the top as Violent Naples or The Rat, The Cynic, The Fist. Those two films had a larger cast, more car chases, and more characters to be killed off in various ways. Almost Human on the other hand is Milian's show all the way. Despite, according to the interview on my DVD, Milian being a bit full of himself, he really can act and here he displays every side of a sociopath, from a screaming murderer to a grief stricken boyfriend, to a begging, pathetic weasel (the switches in personality are really impressive). As the film concentrates almost exclusively on Milian, it's slower paced but not without it's set pieces, from Milian and his gang crashing a party, to Milian's drive with girlfriend Anita Strinberg out into the country. I'd say the title doesn't just refer to Milian, but also to Silva, who displays little emotion throughout the film, save his rage against Milian. I recommend this and all the other Lenzi crime movies I've seen: Violent Naples, The Rat, the Cynic, The Fist, and Syndicated Sadists. It's a pity he got bogged down trying to outdo Ruggero Deodato with those vile cannibal flicks, because it's with the crime genre he excelled at.

christopher-underwood Fine performances from all concerned, faultless non stop action direction and a pulsating score from Morricone all means that this super tight sleaze bag of ultra violence cannot fail - and it doesn't. It's not a pretty sight, except perhaps for the one shot of the lakes, with Milan looking about as disgusting as Mr Milian's constant and continuous nastiness. If I take issue at all here it is because it is established early on that the lead nasty is going to stop at nothing to achieve his goal and this leaves out the possibility of suspense or tension. We just know that he will relentlessly pursue his aims no matter who dies. That aside, it has to be said that unpleasant though much of this is it is certainly a most ruthless piece of film-making.

Gero Termine Before watching this movie I thought that it could be a worthless movie, a typical Italian commercial movie like many others. But, after wards I watched it I must have changed my mind. I don't know why I always refused to watch this kind of movies of the 70's. I've been very impressed by the action, the dialogs, the acting. It was like I've been watching an American movie with Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson or any other actor of action-movies. Also I think this movie can be considered a precursor of Tarantino pulp-movies. In fact there is a lot of unjustified blood and sometime it let you think to be hilarious. First of all I must point up how great Tomas Milian is in this movie (he is great in a lot of his other movies too): he got the main role and, thanks of his acting, he keeps the audience stuck to the video all along the movie runtime. The other characters are well played by Henry Silva (the cop who shoots the bad guy at the end of the movie even if he was judged not guilty), Ray Lovelock (the bad guy who falls in love with the kidnapped girl) and Laura Belli (the rich man's daughter).A great movie.P.S.: don't let the children watch this movie: there is too much violence!

Mario Pio ONCE upon a time in Italy the "poliziottesco" movie. Titles like "Milano odia", "Roma violenta", "Torino nera" ecc. were common and that is significant to understand the 70, with fear of terrorism, austerity after the bachanal of the '60 boom. So, according to the Siegel line, Lenzi creates probably his best movie. Tomas Milian is the ideal actor for that kind of loser, raged agaist the richs but without ideals. Only ferine rage hopelessy. So today this film illustrated well the clime of grey tension of that years. In the days of his issue someone shout that it was a "fascist" movie, only because the cop (Silva) can applies his revenge not as a policeman but as a private citizen...this is a little bit siegelian... The only thing than Lenzi could make better is to realize a more significant characterization for the figure of Henry Silva, wich substantially is marginal in respect of Milian. But we all know that the importance of the movie is based on the shoulder of the loser. All in dark, dirty locations with bad wearing...Once upon a time the '70!!!