Syndicate Sadists

Released by: 88 Films
Released on: March 28th, 2017.
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Tomas Milian, Joseph Cotten, Antonio Casale
Year: 1975
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The Movie:

Directed by Umberto Lezni, 1975's Syndicate Sadists opens with a scene where a scruffy bearded man in a leather jacket and a red hat rides his motorcycle into town. This man is Rambo (Tomas Milian), and he's arrived to visit his old pal. After saying hi to the buddy's wife and kids, it's time to get down to business. Rambo's friend currently works for a police force tasked with taking down the local mobsters. Rambo's offered a job on the force but he turns it down. He's not the policing type, you can just tell - even if he is a crack shot with his pistol.

Soon after, said friend is dead at the side of the road, having had his head based against a rock by a thug named Philip Duvale (Antonio Casale). When Rambo gets word of what happened, he makes it his own personal mission to seek revenge - but there's more to this than that. See, there's more than one mob to deal with in this town. One of the organizations is run by Paterní² (Joseph Cotton), an older man who won't leave his estate who lets his son Ciccio (Adolfo Lastretti) do all the dirty work. The second is run by Conti (Luciano Catenacci), a beefy bald guy with a taste for hookers. When an innocent young boy gets kidnapped in the ensuing conflicts, our hero puts into motion a plan to play each side against the other - but it won't be easy, and he just might lose his foxy girlfriend Flora (Femi Benussi) along the way.

“Life's a hole. We are born from a hole, eat from a hole, shit from a hole, and end up in a hole.”

You've got to love dialogue like that, and there's a fair amount of it in Syndicate Sadists (which is fairly violent but not really as sadistic as the title might lead you to believe). Milian is in fine form here, embodying the cool counter culture of the era with his scruffy beard and strange choice in hats. He does good work, playing Rambo (yes, the name was lifted from the novel First Blood but this film was made a few years prior to Stallone making the name iconic!). He's calm, he's crafty, he's clever - even witty sometimes. He suits the part and the part suits him. The rest of the cast are alright too. Cotten is well past his prime here, one of many American actors whose star was starting to fade to wind up in Italian crime films like this. He isn't asked to do all that much, dramatically speaking, but he's fine when he's on screen. Adolfo Lastretti as his soon makes a bigger impression, but that's less to do with his acting ability than it is his penchant for sticking what looks like an inhaler up his nose every few minutes. Pretty Femi Benussi, with her curly red hair (and who pops up in Strip Nude For Your Killer, Hatchet For The Honeymoon and a few other Italian cult titles) looks great strutting about as Rambo's main squeeze, while Luciano Catenacci as Cotten's whoring rival mobster is a blast to watch. Really, this is a pretty well cast picture.

The film also delivers some pretty solid action sequences. Like a lot of similar movies, Syndicate Sadists offers up plenty of motorcycle and car chases (Milian did not do any of the stunt work here, which explains why his character's face is often covered by goggles or a scarf during these scenes!), most of which end in some sort of collision of explosion. The big shoot out that takes place during the film's finale is a stand out sequence, it's well shot, well cut and quite tense.

Video/Audio/Extras:

88 Films brings Syndicate Sadists to Blu-ray on a 50GB disc with a healthy bit rate in an AVC encoded 1080p transfer 'from the original camera negative' framed at 2.39.1 widescreen. Detail here is quite strong, especially in close-up shots, while texture is also very solid. There's nice depth to the image and outside of a few small specks and maybe a couple of tiny scratches, the picture is quite clean. Thankfully, 88 Films seems to have avoided the use of DNR that seems to crop up on some of their releases, so you can expect a naturally grainy image. As to the colors, there's a green hue throughout much of the film. This makes the skin tones featured in the picture look a little darker and it causes some of the colors featured in the movie to look a bit off. This doesn't ruin the transfer - again, the detail here is quite impressive - but a bit of color correction could have made this look almost perfect. As it stands, this is still a substantial upgrade over the previous DVD release from Media Blasters (which was a crummy looking interlaced transfer, though it did include a director's commentary not ported over to this release).

The only audio option on the disc is an English language LPCM Mono track. Clarity is fine here, the dialogue is easy to understand and the score has pretty good depth to it. There are no problems to report with any hiss or distortion and the levels are balanced. There are a few minor typos here and there in the optional English subtitles but nothing so serious as to really cause any harm.

Extras start off with a twenty-one minute on camera interview with director Umberto Lenzi entitled Remembering Rambo. Lenzi is his typically interesting self here, talking up working with Milian on the picture, providing some social context for the picture, discussing the importance of genre to the Italian film industry and sharing some interesting stories from the shoot. Also on hand is the ten minute Mike Malloy On Syndicate Sadists piece, in which the man behind the Eurocrime documentary talks about the different titles that the film was released under while standing in a makeshift video store. He also discusses what sets this film apart from similar pictures and just as importantly talks about what they all have in common while making some astute observations about this picture's connection to Yojimbo. Like the other pieces Malloy has done for 88 Films, this segment is done with a good sense of humor, making it both informative and quite funny.

Menus and chapter selection are also included on the disc which comes packaged inside a clear Blu-ray keepcase that also features some reversible cover art. The first pressing of this release also includes a nice slipcover that features artwork that appears to be based off of the original Italian poster art.

The Final Word:

Syndicate Sadists holds up really well, a rock solid slice of Eurocrime action and mayhem highlighted by Milian's cool as ice performance. The action sequences are top notch, the film moves at a really nice pace and the story is gripping enough to easily hold our attention. 88 Films presents the film in a good transfer with a few fun extras.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!