Eh, too grim. Then again, what was I expecting from a film about neo-nazi youngsters in Milan? A custard pie fight?
From the rudimentary research I did about this film it seems that the Piazza San Babila was some sort of hanging around place for fascist types in the seventies. I'm sure they weren't allowed to rampage to the extent that these lads do in this film though.
Fours youths - Franco, Fabrizio, Big Malky and DJ Industrial Pukegrinder are all members of a fascist group whose main rivals in Milan seem to the communists. Fabrizio is their leader, but he also seems to be an informer for the police and may also just be doing what he does for kicks. Franco is the weak link, a mummy's boy and a virgin, much to the amusement of the others. In fact, one of their first actions is to try and break his duck, using ditzy model Brigitte Skay to do so. When he can't crack a fatty, he goes nuts and assaults her with a truncheon. Symbolism, eh?
I think that the events in this film are supposed to happen in one day as well, but if that's the case these guys sure get around a lot. We see one of them fighting with his crazy, abusive father. Another quits his job when caught with a knife. At various points they argue their fascist dogma with fellow students and when they finally get around to doing something constructive they plan and attempt to blow up a communist party headquarters.
To be honest things meander quite a lot in this film and as the four are unrelentingly horrible I didn't quite connect to what was happening in the film. My only sympathies lie with Brigitte Skay, who is generally abused by Fabrizio and Franco. Even the murder at the end of the film goes on forever as our four chase a couple around Milan for what felt like about six hours.
Carlo Lazzani seems to be one of those directors who certainly had his own vision for things, but sometimes that vision failed him. This is interesting as it tries to tell a story from a different point of view, but it still suffers from an overdose of grimness as a lot of these 'raping, killing rich kids' films seems to have.
