Big Guns aka Tony Arzenta (aka No Way Out, which is the most fitting title but also the more descriptive one) is a French-Italian crime movie by Duccio Tessari starring legendary French actor Alain Delon.
Arzenta (Delon) is a professional assassin with a wife (Nicoletta Machiavelli) and child. He decides to retire, and confides in his handler Nick (Richard Conte) and his Sicilian family friends. When Nick however tells his business associates, the other bosses of the underworld, his retirement is ruled out categorically. They target him for a different kind of retirement, but the mission goes bust and his wife and kid get killed instead. Bitter and determined, he goes after his former employers and business associates, a roaring rampage of revenge that takes him all across Europe, and gets the mafiosi trying to wrap their heads around how to deal with Arzenta…..
I had Tony Arzenta before on Netflix awhile back, then it came out on BluRay in Germany (which I skipped). The first time around I liked it but didn’t feel very impressed by it. This second time around I have to say it still doesn’t register much better. I find it to be too melancholic, a borderline mood killer, slow moving of course. That doesn’t mean it isn’t tense, brutal, cool in parts, and well made, but overall it’s just too much of a bummer – but without the cool style of Le Samourai for example, if one needs a Delon (Farewell Friend) coolness reference point.
Now, the movie boasts some intense shoot outs, violent kills, car chases (including jumps) and more. It is a decent mix of Italian polizio and mafia movie with just a dash of the French style of crime flicks. Matt Lynch called it the “Eurocrime John Wick“, which isn’t far from the truth, either. It’s a straight-up revenge movie of the sort where a syndicate screws over one of its most capable guns, and then that gun gets turned on themselves. The co-writer here was Ugo Liberatore (The Sex of Angels, see my review at the GCDb) by the way, and the acting and dialogue are all stellar. At 112 minutes it is decently laid out, if it weren’t such a drag, atmospherically speaking.
There’s a solid, but uninspired score by Gianni Ferrio (Death Occurred Last Night), too. Director Duccio Tessari (A Pistol for Ringo) delivers a solid crime flick that won’t disappoint fans, but alas, to me it was too much of a drag. What I liked were tons of familiar faces, for example Loredana Nuscziak (Django), Nicoletta Machiavelli (Navajo Joe), Erika Blanc (Django Shoots First), Rosalba Neri (Top Sensation), Ettore Manni (Closed Circuit) or Umberto Orsini (Emmanuelle 2). A great cast, a solid flick, don’t make too much of my disdain for its mood, it’s still a rock solid picture.
Radiance Films‘ BluRay brings Tony Arzenta to the UK in HD for the first time. You have the choice of cleaned up uncompressed English or Italian audio. The English subtitles by the way are a translation of the Italian, which does not exactly match the English dub (for which you can select English SDH type subtitles), noticeable difference can be observed in off camera moments and elsewhere, although they are minor. English gets you a more realistic sounding dub, with Conte’s actual voice (I think), but neither audio options will give you Delon’s real voice. The movie looks and sounds great in this presentation, another stellar job in this department. As for extras, there’s a 12-minute archival interview with Delon from 1973, a new interview / video essay by Eurocrime savant Mike Malloy (11 minutes) and select scene commentary by critic Peter Jilmstad (selectable for a total of 6 scenes) of Fragments of Fear, as well as the trailer. It all comes in the accustomed reversible sleeve, the limited run boasting a booklet and slip cover.
Buy now: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de / Amazon.de (non-Radiance) | Amazon.fr (non-Radiance)
Furious Cinema’s Radiance Films review series. Click to read more.
