Naples... The Camorra Challenges, the City Hits Back (1979) User Reviews

Viva Napoli...again!

[Bezenby · 7/10 · 30 December 2018]

Jeff Blynn looks like a mad scientist tried to clone Richard Harrison, but one of Maurizio Merli's pubic hairs managed to drift into the machine at the same time. He's got Harrison's piercing stare, but the thick, manly moustache of Merli and especially his hair, which seems too big for his head.

Jeff isn't the main focus here. As usual, the main focus is crooner Mario Merola (who, I have to point out, reminds me of British TV Astrologer Russel Grant). You all know Mario, right? Drives a blue mercedes in every film, gives a bit of song, usually about Naples, smuggles cigarettes? Well all know that Mario always plays a down to Earth family man with a big heart, but we also all know that Mario isn't very good at protecting his family (usually his children) from violent gangsters.

The begins with cop Jeff and a journalist picking through the remains of a gunfight that has resulted in an awful lot of corpses. Jeff finds a zippo lighter that plays a tune, which causes a flashback to the rest of the film. It seems Mario and various other Neapolitans just want to work, look after their family, and sing, but violent hood Antonio Sabato wants to force his protection racket upon everyone. Mario insists he's strictly legit and made his money the hard way, which results in his warehouse being blown up. This happens to several other citizens too, while we get glimpses of the put upon people pulling triggers.

Mario's son gets beaten up and his girlfriend raped, which sets him off on a mission to take down the racket. Sadly for him the police are really thick and parade every single witness in front of the gang, with predictable results. We all know where the film is heading, but Breschia still manages to make it work by giving us a huge blood filled gun battle with a unique death for one guy in particular.

Full of people being Neapolitan (eating, smoking, screaming at full volume into each other's faces), Breschia mostly dispenses with the humour of the last few films (save for the usual fat guy) and doesn't even have any street urchins in the film at all. What he does have is a cheap, but nasty crime film where even the bad guys have a song, after a huge meal of course.

Once again, it all strangely works. Do you think that Mercedes actually belonged to Merola?

Rare polizia from Alfonso Brescia

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 28 January 2019]

This is one of the rarer Italian polizia movies out there, one which doesn't even have an English release title to see it by. It's directed by the infamously awful Alfonso Brescia but the good news is that it's one of his better productions, less tedious than usual and with less outrageously cheesy moments. The main character is a big guy, a family man who finds his nearest and dearest threatened by brutal gang members, so violence ensues. Brescia seems to spend half the screen time showing his characters munching away on heavy meals but before long the lightheartedness gives way to bloodier moments. It's no classic, but genre fans may get a kick or two out of it.

Napoli...La Camorra Sfida, La Citta' Risponde (Alfonso Brescia, 1979) **

[Bunuel1976 · 4/10 · 14 November 2008]

This is surely one of the least poliziotteschi I've come across, but it's still watchable enough. It lacks the typical rugged hero – substituting him instead with burly Mario Merola who was known to carry a Neapolitan tune! The slick yet one-note villain, then, is played by Antonio Sabato (usually seen as a good guy, albeit as wooden as ever) – who's about the only member of the cast (or face) known to me!

Coming at the tail-end of the genre, the film injects a good deal of bawdy humor into the hard-boiled/violent proceedings – especially with respect to a stocky bar owner who's intimidated by the protection racket offered by Sabato and his cohorts. Still, he's so dumb that, when threatened that it might get very hot unless he collaborates, he quips: "What the f*** do I care? I'll switch on the air-conditioning"! Later on, a bomb goes off in the bar just as he's about to use the toilet; at the climax, his scruffy-haired father is revealed to be no less inept as, choosing a bazooka with which to confront the villains, the one shot he's able to take only serves to blow up their own car!!

Anyway, Merola is a self-made industrialist who, with a number of other self-employed business owners, is forced to take protection from the mob or else; when the former refuse, the latter takes drastic action (as already mentioned). However, the Police can't get anything out of the 'victims' which may identify the culprits…until Merola's photography enthusiast son takes snapshots of Sabato picking up the payment due at each of their establishments/offices. Foolishly, the Inspector not only has the criminals in the police line-up facing their would-be accusers but he even brings out the boy, whose tirade does lead the men to sign the requisite police statement which lands Sabato & Co. in jail.

Merola's son, who had already been beaten up and watched his girlfriend get raped, is sent off to Rome with the latter's family – however, the "Camorra" is soon to know of his whereabouts (though we're never told how, just like the revenge-seeking owners are made to ambush Sabato's gang at an out-of-the-way restaurant – cheerfully depicted in the most clichéd view of Italians singing, eating and drinking to their heart's content): they kidnap and turn him onto drugs so hard that he's reduced to a raving, foaming-at-the-mouth lunatic! The latter scene really throws the film into overdrive (though, prior to this, director Brescia had intermittently inserted stylized yet pointless images of the various owners getting shot – presumably to emphasize the point that they've all become marked men) and, in fact, the climactic action bout is filled with over-the-top violence…none more so than when Sabato, cornered by Merola in an ossuary, is impaled by the latter with a massive wooden cross!!

Brescia's Best

[shogun340290492 · 9/10 · 12 September 2002]

Poor old Alfonso,everyone hates his movies but i think i might have found the exception here.This is a great Italian crime film made strictly for local audiences ie Napoli and so no English language version but this is so good that doesn't matter.Mario Merola plays the character he plays in every Brescia movie,the Mafia don who everyone loves,a tough but nice guy.Unfortunatly Antonio Sabato arrives and starts demanding protection money from Merola and all the local shopkeepers,businessmen etc which finally leads up to a rather strange but violent showdown.

There are some great scenes in this movie and the soundtrack is fantastic esp. Merola's solo at the wedding party and the opening credits.The 2 leading men play their parts excellently and Brescia's direction is spot on.If your after an Italian crime movie that's a bit different but still has all the set pieces you expect from the genre then get this,if you can find it.

Brescia's eminently rewatchable, late 70s Eurocrime scorcher!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 8/10 · 8 June 2022]

The capable, rather than ostentatiously gifted genre film-maker Alfonso Brescia's rough-hewn style aggressively compliments the bellicose, blood-squibbed savagery of the hard-boiled, revenge-fuelled poliziotesco, as his 'Napoli...la camorra sfida, la città risponde' demonstratively proves to be an eminently rewatchable, late 70s Eurocrime scorcher. Hard-working proletariat, deeply loving patriarch Don Francesco Gargiulo (Mario Merola) fatefully becomes the unfortunate victim of cruel professional racketeers, mercilessly headed by toxic alpha Thug Vito Santoro (Antonio Sabàto) in schlock impresario Brescia's engaging, and pleasingly dramatic 'Napoli... la camorra sfida, la città risponde'. The somewhat ineffectual commissario De Stefani is played by the suitably tepid Jeff Blynn, a bargain bin Maurizio Merli. In this instance the confounded cops take a back seat, since it is up to resolute businessman Gargiulo to courageously take up arms against the scum and villainy in Alfredo Brescia's bracingly zesty B-picture.

While 'Napoli...la camorra sfida, la città risponde' noticeably lacks the delirious, hyperbolic brutality of a Lenzi, Martino or Massi, Brescia effectively generates some tangible tension, engendering great pathos over the increasingly precarious plight of the beleaguered, thug-tormented citizens of Naples, and excitingly orchestrating a cathartic, suitably bullet-shredded finale! Burly Mario Merola is always entertaining to watch, a fine, charismatic, hugely likeable actor, and a wonderful singer ta' boot! The atmospheric slow-build, and its lively roster of credible characters lends additional impact to the gloriously gonzo gun-battle at Napoli...la camorra sfida, la città risponde's exhilarating, dynamically-shot conclusion. Merola makes for a sympathetic, more nuanced revenge-seeking protagonist, but the true glory of Brescia's pleasingly rumbustious actioner is the beautiful historical city of Naples and the fabulously funky score by maestro Eduardo Alfieri. Merola fans might also care to note that the talented gentleman puts his legendary pipes to mellifluous use when he serenades his beloved wife!