Three adjectives apply to all three men at the center of Young, Violent, Dangerous, a ’70s Italian police drama from the mind of the great Fernando Di Leo (The Italian Connection). However, he yielded directorial duties on this one to Romolo Guerrieri (Johnny Yuma). I, for one, could sense the absence of Di Leo’s sure touch, and greatly missed it.

Louie, Paul and Joe and the troublemakers to whom the title refers. Joe’s the one in a Fritz the Cat T-shirt and overalls who plays hopscotch, just for the record. Louie’s the one whose girlfriend, Lea (Eleonora Giorgi, Inferno), rats them out in the first scene, letting the authorities know of the bored, pampered boys’ plans to rob a gas station.

That felonious act leaves four men dead, which excites constant gigglebox Joe as they escape from commissioner Tomas Milian (Cop in Drag): “You gotta admit, guys: It was better than OK Corral!” The trio immediately robs a bank of $5 million, then, after a round of group sex where someone farts, a grocery store. One long and winding car chase later, they’re fleeing with Lea to the country, where innocent campers await to be murdered for the hell of it.

Crime sprees usually make for can’t-miss concepts in films, but Young, Violent, Dangerous — while amusing in its first act — is too off-target to register for greatness. Milian’s a fine hero, naturally, but his screen time is limited, given over to the three punks you really don’t want to hang out with. Eurocrime can offer much worse, but it also can offer much better. —Rod Lott

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The Watcher is not good. Forgive the unoriginality of that opening sentence, but it’s far more original than the film itself.

Acting druggy as ever, Keanu Reeves is a serial killer who taunts cop James Spader (whose lazy eye I’d never noticed) by sending him photographs of his next victim, giving Spader and crew 24 hours to try and locate the intended murderee in time. Hardly figuring in to the instantly forgettable plot is Marisa Tomei, looking uncharacteristically puffy and tired, as Spader’s psychiatrist.

You see, Spader is haunted by a particular murder committed by Reeves in the past that he was unable to stop. This has caused him to become some sort of drug addict, resulting in one of the film’s many clichés — namely, that swallowing pills is really hard and requires one to throw his neck back to a perfect right angle and grimace uncomfortably as if the capsules were laden with porcupine quills.

The Watcher also dredges up the equally tired and unrealistic scenes of phone calls that end without the person saying “Bye” or any farewell of the kind; car chases where the one automobile that whips into traffic never gets hit, but causes several crashes; and tape recorders that always rewind to the exact point needed, and never in the middle of a sentence. Slick and glitzy, yet still workmanlike, The Watcher smacks of a director who got his start in music videos, and sure enough, Joe Charbanic did. Thus, you get hilarious, slow-mo scenes of Reeves dancing while holding a gun, not to mention enough photography flashes to cause seizures. —Rod Lott

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It’s impossible to watch Orca without thinking of Jaws. Hell, director Michael Anderson (Logan’s Run) won’t let you! Ennio Morricone’s score borrows a cue or two from John Williams, shots of the fin are like a constant visual reminder, and — let’s be honest — producer Dino De Laurentiis never would’ve made this project had Jaws not eaten up box-office records. Given Dino’s Kong-sized ego, the killer-whale film even acts like it’s out to top the Great White, opening with a scene in which a shark is turned to bloody chum by a whale, as if to say, “You’ve been pwned, Spielberg!”

He wasn’t. Not just a flop, but a real slog, Orca stars Richard Harris (Gladiator) as the possibly insane Capt. Nolan, who’s out to hunt down the “most powerful animal in the world,” according to a marine biologist (Charlotte Rampling, Zardoz). That angers her, and so does Nolan’s interest in her, prompting her to diss him with a curt, “You’re a sensitive bore.” (Oh, no, you di’n’t!)

Nolan hooks a female killer whale, not knowing the beast was pregnant. When he hoses its expelled fetus back into the deep, the father whale (Orca, I guess) makes it his life’s work to follow them across the ocean and take ’em out. When Orca makes off with a character’s leg, Nolan channels his inner Ahab and clunkily vows, “I’ll fight you, you revengeful son of a bitch!” The last five or so minutes provide the thrills and atmosphere missing all along.

Among the supporting cast, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest‘s Will Sampson plays the Native American no one listens to, and soon-to-be-sex-symbol Bo Derek makes her film debut as the girl who seemingly cannot blink. Orca is played by himself; he’s a talented whale, somehow capable of screaming underwater. —Rod Lott

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Maybe I’ve seen too many gory horror flicks (guilty, your honor!), but Prime Evil director Roberta Findlay’s infamous Tenement didn’t quite strike me as the mega-disturbo flick it’s made out to be: “TOO VIOLENT TO BE RATED!” I mean, it’s no picnic in Central Park, but how could it mess up your mind when its jaunty hip-hop theme song reminds me of Mario Van Peebles in Beat Street?

On a hot August day in the Bronx, after threatening one of its own with a dead rat, a gang is removed forcibly from its home base(ment) in a two-bit apartment building, much to the rejoicing of the landlord and residents, who throw a party: “We won’t be seeing them again. Cheers!” They forgot to knock on wood, because elsewhere, high as a kite, gang leader Chaco (Enrique Sandino) vows, “I’m gonna get my building back! We’re gonna have some fun!” Watch out for their Wang Chung.

As night falls, the shit goes down. They assault the residents, taking a straight-razor to a neck or two. While getting raped, an African-American woman stabs her attacker in the eye with scissors. She’s rewarded with a pipe up the plumbing — implied, luckily. Our hooligans stop only to shoot up and, in Chaco’s case, knead the breasts of his gal pal with his bloody paws.

Eventually, the residents get all Howard Beale/Twister Sister on the scumbags, which gives the grimy film its cathartic kick. A granny delivers a baseball bat to the ‘nads; one tuffie is electrocuted via bed frame; and even the kids get in on the action, pouring pots of boiling water. Those aren’t spoilers so much as reasons for you to watch this relentlessly downbeat exercise in nihilism. —Rod Lott

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Brian De Palma sure loves exploring the idea of doubles, duplicates and just plain dupes, and Sisters is one of his finest and earliest such ventures. Opening with a sly trick pulled on his viewers, the psycho thriller centers on French-Canadian model/actress Danielle (Margot Kidder, so good I temporarily forgot she was Superman’s Lois Lane), who’s struggling to make it in New York.

She’s also struggling with the guilt piled upon her by her twin sister, Dominique, especially when Danielle brings home a date (Lisle Wilson, The Incredible Melting Man), which also irks Danielle’s jealous ex-husband, the odd-looking (to say the least) Emil (Bill Finley, Eaten Alive).

It’s difficult to discuss Sisters without spoiling the story’s several twists, so I won’t go beyond details further than Danielle’s across-the-street apartment neighbor, journalist Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt, TV’s Soap, saddled with horrible ’70s hair), witnessing a murder through the window. This allows De Palma to explore his other cinematic obsession: voyeurism.

Call him a Hitchcock rip-off artist if you like, but to do so would be to short-change yourself from a gripping mystery made all the more disturbing by Bernard Herrmann’s score. De Palma established his split-screen storytelling device here — not just a gimmick, but an effective tool to tighten the screws of suspense on his audience. And that he can wield a considerable amount of tension out of a simple act of icing a cake is … well, icing on the cake. —Rod Lott

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