Three Tough Guys
                              
Director: Duccio Tessari
Year: 1974
Rating: 5.0
Aka - Tough Guys


Three tough guys is no exaggeration. There were not many tougher in the 1970s - Isaac Hayes, Fred Williamson and European tough guy Lino Ventura. This is a strange hybrid that is mainly Blaxploitation but with a solid sheen of Italian crime. The director is Duccio Tessari who had a few Italian crime films on his resume, the producer is Dino De Laurentiis, but the soundtrack is Isaac Hayes and that makes it Blaxploitation. This was Hayes acting debut, but Truck Turner was just ahead. This is an unusual film for Williamson - he plays the bad guy and gets beat up by Hayes. That wasn't going to happen too often going forward. He had just appeared in Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem and That Man Bolt the previous year - but perhaps this film was made before those because he doesn't get all that much screen time and he is a villain. Hell, his name is Joe Snake. And Ventura - he had been one of the best European tough guys since the mid-1950s on either side of the law, His broken nose from a boxing match gives him a distinct homely but appealing look. He plays a priest of all things here. One with a mighty punch.


 
Not many people seem to like this film - disappointed that it wasn't better - and that is fair - it is lumpy and slow-moving - but any film with these three actors in it will do me fine. I especially liked that Ventura crossed the ocean to be in this. All three of them have a presence and take up good space. An insurance investigator is looking into a bank robbery and he and one of the robbers are murdered in cold blood. A machine gun blast. The killing of the insurance man pisses off Father Charlie and he decides to find out who killed him. Just like any priest would for one of his congregation. But he was once a criminal and knows how to take care of himself. With a fist like a rock. Hayes plays a cop who was fired for slacking off while on duty to be with a woman when a bank was robbed. Now he is after the robbers.  So are other people and they keep getting killed.

 

Hayes and Ventura partner up when Hayes saves Ventura from being thrown into a furnace - and suddenly we have a buddy film. Hayes cooks his eggs on a heated clothes iron which seems like a good idea if needed. The priest has a cache of weapons on his wall in the church. Must be a saint I have never heard of. When Hayes is in trouble, Ventura rides his bike to the rescue. For miles. Take a taxi. They beat up a lot of people but every time they find a possible witness, he is killed. Ya, that sort of film.  It is definitely clunky but passable.