Con la rabbia agli occhi is Italian for “with anger in his eyes,” which makes the above poster one of the only ones we’ve seen with art so on the nose that it doesn’t need a title at all. If you were preseneted with this and it had no writing, and you were asked what the movie was called, “with anger in his eyes” would be one of your top guesses. In the U.S., though, the movie was called Death Rage. Also works.
Yul Brenner stars as a retired hitman living in New York City who’s drawn back to Italy for one last job when he’s told that his target will be the man who murdered his brother. Off he heads to track down this killer, flying into Naples under his own name in order to set himself up as bait. He gets his wish, but a complication is his vision problems, which he thinks are physical but a doctor tells him are psychosomatic, and another complication is Barbara Bouchet, who turns his head, bad eyes and all.
Brenner’s plan to act as bait brings the mafia thugs into the open in short order, but they also go after Bouchet, which brings her to the attention of the cops. They try to turn her, but like a true criminal moll she says nothing and agrees to help Brenner in a last ditch gambit to elude police surveillance and have his sweet vengeance. He has additional help in the form of a local hustler who he’s been training to be a hitman. Will the scheme go as planned? Well, that depends on whose plan you mean.
These Italo actioners are usually not great because they were mid-budget at best to begin with and don’t age well, but we have to admit to liking this one. Brenner has something. He’s good to watch. Martin Balsam in a co-starring role is solid, Massimo Ranieri is convincing as the eager apprentice, and Bouchet, well, is Bouchet. She even performs a striptease. It’s perfunctory and not very artful, but she doesn’t need to be artful—she is the art. Con la rabbia agli occhi premiered in Italy today in 1976.
