‘The Boss’ or — Explosive Cinema… Literally?
OPENING SCENE — A group of Sicilian mob bosses accompanied by their bodyguards meet in a private cinema to watch a porno. As they settle into their seats whilst exchange crude banter a hitman silently kills the projectionist in his booth before repeatedly firing a grenade launcher into the cinema below and — BLAM! BOOM! — everyone is blown to smithereens!
HARD CUT into opening credits over the flaming auditorium as Luis Enriquez Bacalov’s pounding soundtrack kicks-in (feeling very much inspired by Nucleus’ stonking jazz-fusion number ‘Song for the Bearded Lady’) and police sirens wail and THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a movie.
The cliché goes that nobody quite knew how to start their movies with as much explosive energy as Fernando Di Leo, and that’s for one very simple reason — it was completely true. No one else was able to grab the audience by the balls and never let go as ferociously as Di Leo and with ‘The Boss’ (1973) his grip is as gonad-bruisingly tight as ever.
The hitman is Nick Lanzetta (Henry Silva), a loyal enforcer for Don Giuseppe (Claudio Nicastro). Yet when Don Giuseppe’s daughter is kidnapped by a rival gang in retaliation for the cinema job the head of the entire Sicilian organisation, Don Corrasco (Richard Conte), forbids her rescue as any further escalation of violence will attract the attention of the antimafia squad and even though the Mafia might have certain politicians in its pocket (or is it the politicians who control the Mafia?), as well as a few corrupt cops, loyalty is always towards the organisation and its survival, even above an individual’s own family. If there’s a rescue attempt, Don Corrasco privately instructs Lanzetta, then it’s Don Giuseppe who must pay the price.
The ruthless, professional and efficient Lanzetta now finds himself torn between two bosses, but could this predicament also be his opportunity?
With ‘The Boss’ Di Leo plunges us headlong into the political, social and criminal turmoil of Italy’s ‘years of lead’ although it’s unclear as to whether this is to address vital issues, offer solutions and provoke debate or if we’re watching people being blown to bits purely for the nihilistic thrill of it all, and I suspect it’s the latter.
Combine this with Di Leo’s typically cynical stance (the mob have abandoned traditional ‘honour’; the law is rotten and politics even more so; young students are irresponsible hedonists), brutal violence and repulsive machismo and his films are potentially off-putting. Fortunately several factors prevent this from being irredeemably the case.
For one, Di Leo’s work is always furiously entertaining and incredibly exciting, so you might well be appalled, shocked and even offended but you’ll never come close to being bored for a second. The plotting, pacing and momentum is fast and tight and every moment of flabbergasting stupefaction succeeds in its B-movie, exploitation goal of hooking you in even more.
Another saving grace is Di Leo’s sometimes overlooked mordant sense of humour, something best exemplified by Vittorio Caprioli’s show-stealing performance as the police Quaestor (senior officer) who, what with all the bloodshed, a national North/South split and U.S. interference in the country, flippantly declares that Italy has turned into Vietnam. The thing is, he’s got a point.
Then there’s the simple fact that Fernando Di Leo was, quite frankly, an excellent filmmaker and one refreshingly free of preening pretension. Quentin Tarantino is famously a huge Di Leo fan, something that hits you explicitly in the face while watching ‘The Boss’ (did QT get the idea of the burning cinema screen from this?), except while Tarantino can frequently get lost up postmodern cul-de-sacs Di Leo always keeps everything focused and moving, and I know which one I prefer.
‘The Boss’ is pure, unadulterated Fernando Di Leo so if you’re already a fan you’ll know what to expect. If, however, you’ve never encountered the guy and his films before then you might want to run for the nearest exit because the cinema is about to explode… and I mean that literally.
