BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Michael A. Martinez A decidedly lighter tone lingers in Tomas Milian and Umberto Lenzi's next pairing after the dark and demented MILANO ODIA. This time around, Milian plays Rambo, a drifter who rides on a motorcycle from town to town teaching things to kids and reluctantly getting involved in anti-gang activities. Once his goofball security guard friend gets killed after snooping around a little too close to a kidnapping scheme, Rambo decides to hatch his own Yojibo-like plan to get all the local gangs to kill each other. However, they unexpectedly prove slightly smarter than you'd expect and end up teaming up to fight together against our hero, albeit with no better results than they'd have otherwise.Right from the get-go, I knew it was going to be good just judging by the opening credits and how many of the usual "Euro-Henchmen" receive top billing. Riccardo Petrazzi, Adolfo Lastretti, Bruno Di Luia, Mario Novelli, Benito Pacifico, Claudio Ruffini, Giuseppe Castellano, and Luciano Pigozzi would go on to make type-cast careers as henchmen and goons throughout the rest of the 70's owing largely to how well this movie worked out. Even Antonio Casale, the "Brion James" of Italian 70's crime movies, pops by to lend us another sweaty, ugly face for our hero to beat to a pulp and put a bullet in. Sadly we're missing only Nello Pazzafini, Biagio Pelligra, Bruno Corazzari, any Dell'Acqua's, Peverello's, or Sal's Borghese and Billa. Toss in a Sergio Smacchi and our henchman reunion would be complete.With all the potential and solid cast of villains for Rambo to beat up and shoot, the film doesn't quite hit the high notes that later films like VIOLENT NAPLES or ROME ARMED TO THE TEETH would the next year. There's a distractingly silly Micalizzi score and the plot contains enough holes and slow spots to take this down a notch. Best for genre completists or those interested in seeing the true genesis of Milian's later "Nico Giraldi" character. Notable mostly for a demented scene in which a female character gets unintentionally beaten to death by a gang of clueless hit-men.

tony_le_stephanois Il giustiziere sfida la città seems a bit uninspired compared with the other poliziotteschi, for example: Milano Calibre 9, Roma Violenta, Napoli Violenta, Almost human. Though this one is made by poliziotto master Umberto Lenzi (who made around three films a year in that period), it is certainly not one of them.The story about one very cool cop who wants revenge on two criminal families, lacks the real energy and the dramatic intensity of the others. Thomas Milan is too cool as a cop, when you compare him with Maurizio Merli (serious mustache), or Franco Nero (intense eyes). We don't really believe that he is pain because he lost his best friend.It's not a Thomas Milan one-man-show like in other films, in which he went all out with his acting abilities (like Milano odia…). He plays his larger than life hero straight in this film. But I think it is ALWAYS a show when he plays a role, last and not least for his sense of what is cool. No actor I know of smokes a cigarette as aesthetically as Milan, and this biker outfit looks terrible on most men, but he could wear it to a fashion show without a problem. Also fashionable are the FABULOUS sunglasses worn by Joseph Cotton, but that was also the most interesting bit about his role, which is as uninspiring as uninspiring can get. Citizen Kane was far, far away.But then there is the music. You'll have to play this film loud, to fully enjoy the marvelous tunes from Franco Micalizzi, who had a lot of work to do in the 70's.A seemingly real life poliziotto story is hidden in the story of actor Duilio Cruciani, who plays the part of Luigino, the son of Milan's brother. He died from an overdose heroin in 1984 when he was only 26 years old. Newspapers from that day mentioned there were already six death of heroin overdose in Rome in that year already (it was only 17 January). Unfortunately there weren't any poliziotteschi anymore to make films about the subject.

MARIO GAUCI One of the myriad "poliziotteschi" to emerge from Italy during the 1970s, to which both director Lenzi and star Tomas Milian contributed a good deal; in fact, their previous collaboration – ALMOST HUMAN (1974) – is considered among the genre high-points. This, however, is fairly indistinguishable – apart from the fact that the surname of Milian's character is Rambo!; it does include plenty of typical action, not to mention a funky score by Franco Micalizzi. Rambo is a reformed gangster who now supplies iconoclastic help to the Police; predictably, his best pal in the force (actually a special vigilante squad) ends up murdered before long – which sets Rambo on exacting private revenge. This sees him coming face to face once again with his former boss, a now-blind Joseph Cotten (who, like Milian, followed a certain code of ethics in spite of the nature of the work involved) whose 'empire' is being unscrupulously run by the old man's son, Alfredo Lastretti. A smaller rival band of criminals – among whose members is the ubiquitous Luciano Pigozzi – also gets into our disheveled hero's hair by kidnapping an eminent citizen (Silvano Tranquilli)'s son. Incidentally, this incongruous sentimental emphasis on kids – since Milian also dotes on his cop friend's idolizing offspring – does the film the biggest harm; at the same time, while keeping an affectionate (but platonic) eye on the latter boy's mum, he is romantically involved with a prostitute (Femi Benussi) – who, unsurprisingly, is eventually victimized by the baddies for it. Though consistently offering reasonable gratification of various sorts, most examples of the poliziottesco genre suffered from a shallowness that made them instantly forgettable – and this one, alas, proved no exception despite the involvement of two of its major exponents.

Witchfinder General 666 With films such as "Almost Human" (1974) and "Rome Armed to the Teeth" (1976) there is no doubt that Umberto Lenzi is (along with Fernando Di Leo) the absolute master of Italian crime cinema. And Tomas Milian, one of my personal favorite actors, is doubtlessly one of the greatest actors in Italian Cult-cinema in general. While "Il Giustiziere Sfida La Città" aka. "Syndicate Sadists" of 1975 is not nearly as memorable as their earlier collaboration, the nasty, brutal and downright brilliant "Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Può Sparare" aka. "Almost Human" of 1974, this is yet another bad-ass, action packed and incredibly entertaining Poliziottesco from the director/star team Lenzi/Milian.Funnily enough Milian plays a supremely bad-ass biker named 'Rambo', seven years before Vietnam vet Sylvester Stallone drew first blood in 1982. This Rambo is a super-cool full-bearded drifter with remarkable shooting- and fighting-skills, who comes back to his hometown Milan where a buddy wants to talk him into joining a security firm. When his buddy gets killed by gangsters, things get personal...Before becoming a major Poliziotteschi-star, Tomas Milian was already a star of Italian Westerns. The storyline of this film, in which the (anti-)hero plays two criminal gangs against each other, is derived from that of Sergio Leone's milestone "Per Un Pugno Di Dollari" ("A Fistful of Dollars", 1964), which itself was inspired by Akiro Kurosawa's masterpiece "Yojimbo" (1961). A similar storyline was used in several other Spaghetti Westerns, most notably Sergio Corbucci's "Django" (1966); With this film, Umberto Lenzi takes it to modern-day Milan. Even the film's score occasionally reminded me of (a funky 70s version of) Morricone's score to Leone's "Once Upon A Time In The West". "Il Giustiziere Sfida La Città" is neither quite as ultra-brutal and uncompromising, nor as essential a genre-entry as some of Lenzi's most memorable Poliziotteschi, "Almost Human", "Rome Armed to the Teeth" and also "Violent Naples", but it is definitely a highly entertaining film that lovers of Itlian Cult-cinema should not miss out on. The film is very well-shot, and full of violent shootouts, car chases, fights and the usual dose of enjoyable bad-assery. Tomas Milian is beyond cool, and the 70-year-old Joseph Cotten makes an excellent elderly crime boss. The rest of the cast includes many regulars, such as Luciano Catenacci, Guido Alberti, Luciano Pigozzi and Giuseppe Castellano. Rambo's girlfriend is played by sexy Femi Benussi, who sadly keeps her clothes on in this one. Overall, "Il Giustiziere Sfida La Città" is not one of Lenzi's masterpieces, but it is definitely a highly entertaining Poliziottesco that is especially recommendable for a supremely bad-ass Tomas Milian, and that shouldn't be missed by genre-fans.