Contraband (1980)

• Release Date: August 8, 1980
• Directed by: Lucio Fulci
• Written by: Ettore Sanzo, Gianni De Chiara, Lucio Fulci and Giorgio Mariuzzo
• Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes

Right after moving away from suspenseful giallos and into the world of blood-drenched horror with Zombi 2, Lucio Fulci decided to shift gears yet again and deliver his one and only crime film, Contraband. It falls into what is called the poliziotteschi genre, which is one that I admittedly have no exposure to outside of this movie. From what I understand, poliziottesco films were basically Italian crime / action movies that were made during a period of time when Italy was experiencing increased crime rates and lots of political unrest and terrorist attacks. I can't say much more about them since this is the only one that I've seen, but I feel like it's a genre that probably has a lot of interesting works to offer, since many of them apparently take elements from films like Dirty Harry and Death Wish and put them into an Italian cultural context. It's a bit of a strange change of pace for Fulci coming right off the release of a successful gore film, but honestly, this one is a great little surprise!

The plot of the movie follows Luca, a member of an organized crime gang in Naples who runs shipments of cigarettes and alcohol with his brother Mickey. After a large shipment is busted by the cops and has to be abandoned, Luca and Mickey come to the conclusion that someone in their gang had to have snitched on them, so they start trying to figure out who it might have been. When Mickey is gunned down by rival gang members disguised as cops, Luca goes on a revenge quest to find who put the hit out on him. Meanwhile, a French gangster begins taking out established gang leaders in the area. Once Luca's wife and son are eventually kidnapped, everything culminates in an all-out street war between the police, new-blood drug runners and the old guard Mafia Dons in the streets of Naples. While the storyline is perfectly fine and offers up plenty of double-crosses and thrills, it's largely made up of elements that you've probably seen repeated in many other crime movies. There's the gang with a rat in their ranks, rival gangs competing for power, the protagonist avenging the deaths of family members, and many other tropes that have been used time and time again. It may not be all that original at first glance, but the movie has a few tricks up its sleeve that not only gives it a unique edge, but also helps it fit nicely into Fulci's ever-evolving and increasingly violent filmography.

For me, what really makes Contraband work is how drastically its tone shifts over the course of its run time. It starts off feeling like a simple, by-the-numbers crime movie that only aims to deliver cheap thrills like car chases and gunfights. Fabio Frizzi's funky, bass-heavy soundtrack and a couple of early scenes in rainbow-lit disco clubs bait you into thinking that this is just going to be another fairly light action romp of its era. But once Mickey is killed off and Luca begins his quest for revenge, the movie suddenly becomes much more violent and cathartic. He tortures and interrogates one gang member after another, and as the body count stacks up and the conflict between the gangs begins to increase, the funky score loses its lightness and takes on a much more sinister edge. By the time the kidnapping of Luca's family comes into play, the movie reaches its darkest point in tone, and it almost hits horror territory with one infamous scene that may be pretty hard for some viewers to watch. There's a part where Luca's wife is being held hostage by the main villain and his henchmen, who call Luca to see if they can make a deal to transfer the leadership of Luca's gang to them. When he refuses, the villain has his henchmen assault Luca's wife while he's still on the phone. Her muffled screams are heard over the line, getting louder and louder while Luca is powerless to do anything about it, and it goes on for so long that it just becomes uncomfortable to sit through. Fans of exploitation films may be used to seeing that caliber of violence and sadism in what they watch, but casual viewers who enjoyed the movie's earlier, lighter tone will probably find themselves put off by how messed up this thing gets as it reaches its climax.

The icing on the cake that is sure to please genre fans is this movie's level of extreme violence, which sometimes comes off as unintentionally comedic due to how excessive and drawn-out the death sequences can be. A laugh-out-loud moment for me was when a man gets thrown into a boiling sulfur pit after a gunfight, and his charred corpse is later tossed through someone's window as an intimidation tactic. It comes out of nowhere after all the standard mob movie shootout scenes, and a lot of the deaths only get more brutal from there. One scene of a drug deal gone badly takes a shocking turn when the movie's villain starts burning a woman's face off with a Bunsen burner. It just goes on and on, and right when you think he's had enough, he goes back in for more and doesn't stop until her face is a twisted and disfigured mess. The quality of the makeup used in these sequences is honestly on par with some of the effects in Fulci's later horror films, and on top of that, a lot of the gunshot wounds have the same level of highly saturated red coloring and pulpy splatter that made Zombi 2 such a blast to watch. It feels like after getting a good taste for gore effects in his previous movie, he couldn't wait to do them again and decided to pepper them all throughout this one. It really helps to give the movie a unique identity despite being reliant on so many standard tropes in its storyline and characters.

Contraband is a super entertaining flick, and one that I'd recommend to both fans of Fulci's work and lovers of crime movies in general. It's not often that you get to see a movie like this done by a director who would come to be an icon in the world of horror, and its pulse-pounding action and brutal violence lead to plenty of moments that are sure to make genre fans cheer in excitement. Some people may be tempted to skip over it because its release is sandwiched between two classics like Zombi 2 and City of the Living Dead, but I think it's worth tracking down if you want to see the Maestro deliver some fun thrills while continuing to hone the shocking violence he'd become famous for.