ThiefHott Too much of everything

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Red-Barracuda The opening scene from The Boss shows what the 70's Italian crime film was all about. A mafia hit-man wipes out most of a rival family when he fires a grenade launcher at them from the projection booth while they sit back and watch Danish porn. In other words, the genre was about serious action, violence and a distinct lack of subtlety. This opening action duly sets into motion a violent mob war and we are off.Fernando Di Leo shows here once again, that when it comes to poliziotteschi he was the undoubted master. The Boss is the third in an excellent loose trilogy about Italian organised crime. Milan Calibre 9 and The Italian Connection are the other two entries. This one is more specifically about the Mafia and its machinations. As such it's set in the Mafia homeland of Palermo, Sicily. I like how the poliziotteschi films are so city specific. This gives them all distinctive atmospheres; the city is almost a separate character. But in this flick there is no doubt Henry Silva is the star of the show. He plays the hit-man Nick Lanzetta and shows precisely why he is considered an Italian crime genre great. His stone-faced, monosyllabic approach is perfect for this ruthless character. Lanzetta is certainly one of the hardest screen gangsters ever. The movie basically depicts his rise through the ranks of the Mafia. He, like all the other characters is out for himself alone and he is pretty ruthless in getting to the top. There are no good characters in this film, no matter which side of the law they are on everyone is immoral to at least some degree. I think the Italians are so good at this kind of movie because they seemed to think nothing of populating entire movies with shady characters. It's not just the crime films that do this but a lot of the gialli take the same approach. It works especially well in these noir style flicks though, as they usually are making statements about corruption in the Italian authorities as well as looking at the crime gangs. The Boss does detail some of the inner workings of the Mafia too. But more than anything, this is a film that is so very enjoyable because it is loaded with lots of stylish violent action.

zardoz-13 "Mister Scarface" director Fernando Di Leo has a high-ranking Italian police official compare Mafia gang wars with the Vietnam War in "The Boss," the final explosive chapter of his "Milieu Trilogy" that began with "Caliber 9" (1972), aka "Milano calibro 9" (1972) with Frank Wolff and followed with "Manhunt" aka "La Mala ordina, " (1972) co-starring Henry Silva and Woody Strode. If you're looking for no-holds-barred violence on a grand scale, "The Boss" antes up more than enough mayhem and murder during its 100 minute running time to satisfy your thirst for blood. Skull-faced heavy Henry Silva delivers another monosyllabic performance as a cold-blooded Mafia executioner. Veteran Hollywood star Richard Conte lends strong support as the top-most Mafia chieftain."The Boss" covers several weeks of action. It begins inconspicuously enough with a guy carrying a package under his arm who enters an anonymous building. Di Leo shrouds this uneventful activity with composer Luis Enríquez Bacalov's slightly paranoid jazz soundtrack and create a modicum of tension. An entirely different guy in a red shirt delivers a film reel to the projectionist upstairs so we now know that the building houses a movie theater. Downstairs, a well-dressed, loud-talking mobster leads a group of mobsters in business suits into an auditorium. He proclaims that they are about to watch a Danish porn movie with "the best looking broads in the world." Meanwhile, the man with the package, Nick Lanzetta (Henry Silva of "Ocean's 11"), relieves the projectionist of his duties, clobbers him over the head, and get him out of his way. Nick assembles a rifle with a grenade launcher. He turns the auditorium where the mobsters are sawing the porn movie into a inferno. The implicit message that pornographic films are bad for you is unmistakable.Commissioner Torri (Gianni Garko of "Bad Man's River") runs the Mafia types out of the police morgue where the charred remains of the burned bodies lay on slabs. Torri explains his theory to his boss, Il Questore (Vittorio Caprioli of "Mister Scarface"), that the government is to blame for the bloodshed. "It's the fault of the government," Torri argues, "The results of a policy that is a failure. Since the government forced the old bosses into exile, their families have been left fighting for position. That results in complete disorder. All your newer families begin to feel impatient—I'm talking about the oldest ones they suddenly get the ideas that they can start grabbing for power because their own coppo was around to keep it under control." Torri argues that everything is liable to explode if they don't bring back the old dons. Tension exists between Torri and Il Questore because the latter knows that the former receives bribes from the Mafia. Il Questore cannot make any charges stick against Torri and he cannot transfer him out of his department.The massacre in the movie theatre was triggered when an outsider, Cocchi, (Pier Paolo Capponi of "My Name is Pecos"), who is not a Sicilian, wanted to get into the family. Cocchi wants to deal in drugs. Don Corrasco (Richard Conte of "The Violent Professionals") doesn't want drugs in Sicily. Hmn, sounds like "The Godfather." Anyway, Do Corrasco refuses to have anybody in his family that has survived for 40 years who isn't a Sicilian. Fifteen minutes later in the movie, the remaining members of the crime family that Nick wiped out in the porn movie abducts the daughter, Rina Daniello (Antonia Santilli), of Don Giuseppe Daniello (Claudio Nicastro of "A Man Called Magnum), who set Nick on them. The abductors specify their demands: "We don't want money and we don't want the girl. Nothing is going to happen to her, if we can have you, your life for hers. We figure that's a fair exchange." Meanwhile, Cocchi's perverted hoodlums ply poor Rina with liquor and rape her with gleeful abandon.The Don refuses to let Don Giuseppe exchange himself for his daughter. "They would torture you first, would just kill you, they would torture you first. They'd eventually make you tell them who the family contacts are. I'm not thinking of myself but the family it existed for forty years, Giuseppe. We've built it up and defended it together. Nothing is yours not when it interferes with the family." Nick suggests that they offer Cocchi money to stall for time. He insists also that they tell the kidnappers that Don Giuseppe has suffered a heart attack.When Don Giuseppe wants to buy his daughter back without Don Corrasco's permission, Nick shoots Giuseppe and has his body cremated. Nick is an orphan who Don Giuseppe Daniello was raised as his own son, but he has no qualms about killing Giuseppe and Giuseppe's right-hand man. Nick arranges a deal with another gangster, the brother of the Mafia chieftain that he exterminated in the movie theatre. The guy reveals the whereabouts of Rina. Single-handedly, Silva rescues her as two thugs are raping her and kills them without a qualm. He drives through a wall and smashes another car into three pieces.By this time, all the bloodshed has upset Mafia leaders in Rome. They want to see Cocchi and Don Corrasco strike a deal so the killing can stop. Don Corrasco dispatches Nick to finish off Cocchi's gang. The Mafia liaison from Rome urges Don Corrasco to eliminate Nick. According to Don Corrasco, Nick is a man of "infinite resource." Nevertheless, the Don arranges a deal with Torri to arrest Nick and find incriminating evidence that Nick was behind the movie theatre massacre. Torri confronts Nick at his apartment. Nick turns the tables on Torri and forces him at gunpoint to call up Cocchi and invite him to visit him."The Boss" chronicles one bloodbath after another with double-crosses galore in a Mafia power struggle over territory. This is one of the very best Mafia melodramas to come out of Italy.

Coventry The other reviewers are right. It may be an incredibly statement to make, especially since there are so many classic and legendary milestone titles in the genre, but "The Boss" may very well be one of the greatest mafia films ever made! This movie is strictly 100% hardcore-to-the-bone excitement, with ultra-sadistic characters, nasty double-crossings, merciless executions and explosive vendettas that require urgent and bloody settlements. There are no good or loyal characters in Fernando Di Leo's depiction of Palermo's mafia… There are only vicious and emotionless gangsters that would butcher their own parents in order to climb one small step up the Sicilian ladder of power & influence. Even the main character, flawlessly portrayed by Italian cult icon Henry Silva, is a totally relentless bastard that violates women and betrays his closest relatives in exchange for more money and power. Watching this film in all its gritty and violent glory, it's almost depressing to realize that large parts of the script were based on factual events as they occurred in crime-infested Italy during the early 70's. The DVD's commentary track even states that some of the situations were so damn realistic that director Di Leo and other members of the crew had to live with fear for acts of retribution by the local mafia. "The Boss" easily surpasses the status of entertainment and it's even more than just a cult film; this is essential revolutionary cinema! The movie opens insanely brilliant, with Sicilian mafia pawn Nick Lanzetta (Silva) executing most members of a rivaling clan inside a pornography theater. But he doesn't use normal artillery, oh no… He uses a genuine grenade-launcher which turns his targets into steaming little piles of humanoid waste! The pace naturally slows down a bit after this terrific intro, but the dialogs and the story remain utterly compelling and the cast of vile characters that gets introduced is nearly endless, including a sleazy attorney, a nymphomaniac crime lord's daughter and – my personal favorite - a sarcastically venting chief of police. Following the bloody massacre at the cinema, the last remaining leader of the other mafia family wants revenge and he kidnaps the only daughter of Don Giuseppe Daniello. Lanzetta is sent to free her, but treacherous deals are closed everywhere, even within the eminent Daniello family and with the local commissioner of police. The plot is – as usually the case in Italian cult cinema – very convoluted and occasionally difficult to follow, but the action sequences are delicious and several of the plot twists are unpredictable and downright shocking. Henry Silva is phenomenal in his role of relentless killer. His facial expressions never change (he never even smiles) and he's ultimately cruel and professional when it comes to doing his "job". Gianni Garko, playing the commissioner, is splendid as well, particularly when he aggressively shouts at the relatives of dead gangsters because their crying and mourning upsets him! How tactful! The music adds an even grimmer atmosphere to the story and the roughly edited cinematography makes the wholesome appear even more realistic. "The Boss" is the final entry in Fernando Di Leo's trilogy revolving on Italy's circle of organized crime, and the other two "Milano Calibre .9" and "Man Hunt" are supposed to be even better than this one. Personally I haven't seen them yet, but if the rumors are true then Di Leo deserves a statue for his accomplishments in cult cinema.

Giovanni rossi This movie shows it like it is. In this movie Ferdinando di Leo was brave enough to use real unofficial incidents that were happening at the time,he even used some real names, or changed some by changing only a letter from the name, After this movie came, Ferdinando became paraniod that someone was going to "take care of him" for the content of this movie but nothing happend. This movie is great because, Di Leo doesn't make out the characters to be charismatic role models, but the cold blood assassins they really are. I give this movie 2 thumbs up. Plus and the end of the movie it sais to be continued, but not because theirs going to be a sequel, but becuase he just did a piece of mafia history, and the mafia continues, no good endings or bad endings, just a piece of history.