Young, Violent, Dangerous (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Romolo GuerrieriRelease Date(s)
1976 (December 16, 2025)Studio(s)
Centro di Produzioni Citta di Milano (Raro Video/Kino Lorber)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: C+
- Audio Grade: B+
- Extras Grade: B
Review
Young, Violent, Dangerous (Liberi armati pericolosi, 1976) is, despite its genre and character clichés, a solid poliziotteschi about three young men on a bloody crime spree. The picture was adapted from Giorgio Scerbanenco’s novel by Fernando di Leo, the famed genre auteur, and though directed by this less-heralded Romolo Guerrieri, is about on the level of di Leo’s films. It’s extremely violent (though not at all graphic; despite the many murders virtually no blood is shown) and despairing, but imaginative and intelligent with socio-political content, fleshed-out characters, and an adult approach.
Raro Video previously released the picture to DVD in 2012, in a 4:3 letterboxed edition. Their new Blu-ray is no better than barely passable: the video transfer has tepid, drained color, visible damage here and there, and it’s softer than would seem necessary. However, it’s nowhere near as atrocious as some other reviewers claim, and Raro Video has released far worse. It’s a long way from pristine, but watchable, better certainly than the grindhouse experiences I remember from back in the day, or when many of these Italian imports turned up in the middle of the night on my local UHF channel (that ran them with their violence and nudity intact).
Pretty blonde Lea (Eleonora Giorgi, of Inferno fame), worried about her boyfriend Luis’s (Max Delys) safety, informs the local, never-named commissario (Tomás Milián) that Luis and his two pals, Mario (Stefano Patrizi), aka “Blondie,” and Giovanni (Benjamin Lev), aka “Joe,” are planning on holding up an Esso gas station that very morning, in broad daylight. At first the commissioner brushes her off, but eventually he agrees to stake it out.
Sure enough, the trio go through with the hold-up, which turns violent when Mario guns down the manager and he and Joe begin firing in every direction as the police close in. Four die in that bloodbath. “It was like A Fistful of Dollars!” cries Joe.
(The title of the movie itself is reminiscent of Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo which, of course, became The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Perhaps a more commercial export title would have been something like “The Youth, the Thug, and the Psychopath.”)
Having eluded capture and flush with adrenaline, Mario, the de facto leader, decides they might just as well hit a big bank, too. The daring, impromptu, and daylight robbery is shockingly successful. One man is murdered, but the trio gets away with five million lire. The police commissioner sets up roadblocks. Unaware that she’s already spilled the beans to the police, Mario has Lea picked up and spineless Luis can’t lift a finger to save her.
The three young men are genre clichés: Luis is (by 1970s Italian standards) impossibly handsome, but also extraordinarily weak-willed, basically non-violent (he’s the gang’s driver) and thoughtful. Mario has an innocent, almost baby-like face but also the most casually violent and has a kind of death wish; he’s like an Italian version of the characters Bruce Davison often played around this time. Joe, meanwhile, is the smiling madman, laughing maniacally throughout the picture. Indeed, he cackles incessantly, to the point where he actually becomes quite irritating. (In the English-dubbed version his laugh reminds one of The Simpsons’ Krusty the Klown.)
Some of the sociopolitical content is more than a little obvious and preachy, such as when the commissioner sanctimoniously lectures the boys’ wealthy parents for doing such a lousy job raising them. “If your son is a monster it’s your fault!” insists the policeman.
The first third of the film also alludes to Italy’s economic recession, with the trio at one point gleefully throwing money out the window like Robin Hood and his Merry Men. “Maids!” they shout, “Don’t forget to buy your toiletries!”
The film really gets interesting when Lea joins the three. Disgusted by her boyfriend’s self-destructive passivity, she tries to get a reaction out of him by submitting herself sexually to Mario, but to no avail. Later it becomes clear that she simply cannot compete with Mario for Luis’s affections. Their relationship isn’t quite repressed homosexuality, but Mario definitely if subtly completely dominates him, and this sets up the movie’s satisfying conclusion.
Visually, Young, Violent, Dangerous is directed with flair by Guerrieri, whose set pieces, including the robberies and an extended car chase, are all well done and which use their Milano locations well. The climatic standoff between the gang and the police uses well a unique, dizzyingly high bridge connecting two mountains. One wonders how the elaborate car chases were accomplished. Rather than streets blocked off to civilian traffic and intricate stunt choreography, much of this dangerous-looking driving seems to have been filmed amid everyday traffic.
The credits and original poster art play up Tomás Milián’s role, but he’s more on the sidelines, and because of the script’s machinations completely incompetent at his job, especially considering how things turn out. Milián, an international star best known for his spaghetti Westerns and crime films, here shows his age and, possibly deliberately, sports an unflattering haircut that makes him look even older and more conservative.
As noted above, the video transfer of Young, Violent, Dangerous is disappointing, though hardly on the level of “some of the worst of the worst VHS release(s)” as another site opined. Color is considerably drained throughout, some shots are wobbly in the gate (though these may be inherent to the original camerawork), and contrast is way off. By 2026 standards this is a weak transfer, but not as awful as others claim. The packaging notes the film is in Italian with optional English subtitles, but the disc includes an English audio track also, oddly listed as an extra feature. The packaging claims 2.0 stereo, but both tracks are clearly mono, and stereo only in the sense that the DTS-HD Master Audio has been directed to multiple speakers instead of just one. Predictably, the Italian track is in better shape than the English; I watched the first half of the picture in English and the second half in Italian and preferred the latter, even though Milián and other cast members spoke their dialogue in English on-set. The Italian track more explicit and authentic in terms of the dialogue. The English-dubbed version reportedly features the voice of Michael Forest as the commissioner and Pat Starke as Lea.
Supplements include the archival documentary Ragazzi Fuori, a 17-minute interview with director Guerrieri from 2004. Also included is an audio commentary track with Wild, Wild Podcast hosts Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett.
An above average thriller, Young, Violent, Dangerous is worth seeing, and while Raro Video’s transfer is yet another disappointment from that label, it’s really not that bad.
- Stuart Galbraith IV