Tony Arzenta (1973)
Directed by Duccio Tessari

Film Review

Partly as a result of the success of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), but also because of a dramatic recrudescence of real-life Mafia activity, gangster films became very much in vogue in the 1970s.  An astute businessman, Alain Delon was quick to capitalise on the surge in popularity of the kind of film in which, he as an actor, appeared most at home.   In Tony Arzenta (also known as Big Guns, Les Grands fusils and No Way Out), Delon returns to the role he had previously played to chilling effect in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967), that of the lone, ruthlessly efficient hitman.  The film feels as if it is intended as a homage to Melville, who died (way before his time) exactly three weeks before the film's release in France, in August 1973.

To direct the film, Delon turned to one of Italy's best-known genre directors, Duccio Tessari.  The latter had distinguished himself early in his career with his sword and sandals epic Arrivano i titani (1962) but lost his way when he started messing about with spaghetti westerns such as Una pistola per Ringo (1965).  Doubtless influenced by Coppola's film and similar American offerings, Tessari took the classic gangster film and gave it a shuddering jolt of knuckle duster realism, anticipating the far grittier, far more violent crime films that would emerge later in the decade.  At the time, Tony Arzenta was strongly criticised for its graphic depiction of violence and was even branded sadistic, but what it shows would soon become de rigueur in thrillers on both sides of the Atlantic.  The era of ultraviolence in cinema was well underway.

For this big-budget Franco-Italian production, Delon assembled an impressive international cast that includes Richard Conte, Roger Hanin and Anton Diffring (all scarily convincing), although it's a shame that the script doesn't do justice to such an august ensemble of acting talent.  Tony Arzenta can hardly fail to impress with its set-piece action scenes (including some of the most spectacular car chases to be found in a European film of this era), but it's essentially just a complacently cobbled together compendium of clichés, with formulaic characters behaving exactly as we expect, and an ending that is so brazenly unsurprising that it feels like a bad joke.

But who cares if the plot is derivative, recycled hogwash?  Delon is at his cool, enigmatic best and, as an avenging angel hell-bent on revenge, he has a mesmerising allure.  The film is far being Delon's best, but once he has grabbed your attention, you're hooked - even if some of what you see (every on-screen death comes as a shock) causes your stomach to perform back somersaults.  Tony Arzenta is a slick, adrenaline-pumping, gore-splattered rollercoaster - it may make you sick, it may make you feel disgusted, it may even put you off the colour red for the rest of your life, but you won't want to get off.  Delon's subsequent collaboration with Tessari, Zorro (1975), is laughably tame by comparison.  For a far superior example of the Italian gangster film see Pasquale Squitieri's I Guappi (1974).

Film Synopsis

Tony Arzenta is more than just a regular hit-man.  He is one of the Mafia's most prized professional killers, valued for his skill, his courage and his unswerving loyalty.  But one day Tony decides he has had enough.  He wants to start a new life, to spend more time with the wife he loves and the son he adores.  Unfortunately, the Mafia cannot afford to let Tony go.  He knows too much.  He is now a threat to their security.  The only way that Tony will be permitted to leave the organisation is in a wooden box...