Steinesongo
Too many fans seem to be blown away
Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
SeeQuant
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Casey Duggan
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Rainey Dawn
One of Yul Brynner's least known films and the last film he made. Death Rage has Brynner as Peter Marciani, retired hit man that is force out of retirement to avenge the death of his murdered brother. Marciani (Brynner) goes to Naples and after the man he learn killed his brother, mafia kingpin Gennaro Gallo.The film is fine generally speaking: not great but it is not horrible but it is the storyline that that seems to be lacking something to me and I'm not sure what - maybe a little bit more action scenes and a little less talking at times? My point being: the film needed some "spice" that it lacked to make this film stand out better. Really the only thing to make this film stand out is Yul Brynner himself - and that's it.If you like 1970s crime-action films you might like this one but just remember this film could use a wee bit more action... also if you are a fan of Yul Brynner's then I would recommend the film to you.5/10
gavin6942
Yul Brynner stars as a retired mafia hit-man who is called out of retirement to avenge his brother's death. Packing up his fishing pole in New York, he returns to Italy where he confronts the man who killed his brother and his associates, while taking on an apprentice and picking up a lady.This film had two things working against it: most notably, horrible picture quality. If anything wasn't completely filling the screen, you couldn't always tell what it was supposed to be. This made it difficult to recognize characters, especially when we were looking at things fro ma distance. For the most part, I was able to adjust. But also, this film lacks blood. People get shot from guns with invisible bullets, to grab invisible wounds and fall as they bleed invisible blood. That's some cheap special effects! I guess the "R" rating was used for the nudity, which is nothing spectacular when the camera can't stay focused.The story itself was decent, and a time-honored tradition in mafia films. Revenge. Maybe that plot gets old for you, but I think it worked quite well here. And the characters were alright. Someone said they weren't surprised this was Brynner's last starring role... I liked him. His apprentice was also alright and the cop was a nice touch (more on this in a moment).One running theme I liked was the triangle between Brynner, the police and the mafia. The police knew Brynner was there to kill a man (and in fact kills several people) and in one scene the chief even has a lunch with him. The message he sends is "be careful" rather than "you're breaking the law". Now, I understand the point: mafia crime is cleaned up without the police being involved, and because Brynner's an American they can just say he escaped and not waste time on a manhunt. But I still find it hard to believe cops just let killers roam the streets.My judgment: not a bad film, if someone would provide the labor of love to clean it up. Maybe even a remake is in order, although with all the other mafia and revenge films out there, it's not really one that would stand out. If Brynner is still alive, maybe have him in a cameo role. But seriously, if you can tolerate poor filming and like this type of thing, not a bad picture.
Hitchcoc
I don't know much about Yul Brynner ("The King and I" and "Taras Bulba" and all that). Because of his shaved head, he used to get a lot of notoriety. Today, everyone has a shaved head. He did have that deep voice and piercing eyes. He's a very good actor and a pretty masculine presence. This movie is so easy to figure out and so dull, that he's not given much to do. He, of course, is trying to avenge the death of his brother, during some race track intrigue with people shooting trotters and pushing them off their game. It's like thousands of other films. We wait for the showdown, we have a minor character who must become a man and show his stuff. It's not that it's a terrible movie. It just seems slow moving and ordinary.
Coventry
Just in case you didn't know it yet, Yul Brynner isn't the type of guy you want to mess with! This charismatic tough bastard starred in a whole lot of western & war movie classics and wasted the lives of approximately a thousand bad guys on screen. Being a big fan of his macho style, I loved to see him star in a typically violent crime-thriller, particularly because this an Italian crime-thriller and those guys always add more of the red stuff and sleaze! The plot of "Death Rage" is unimportant and routing Mafia & Revenge guff, but the car chase sequences are exhilarating and the wild shootouts are truly blood-soaked (at least in the uncut version...). The events are set in Italy mainly on the horse racecourse where the American hit-man Peter Marciana has come out of retirement especially to kill the gangster boss who was responsible for the death of his beloved brother. Peter gets entangled in the local mafia network, falls in love with a ravishing strip bar dancer (Barbara Bouchet!) and makes a young and spirited thug his hit-man-acolyte. This last sub plot is stolen directly from the Charles Bronson flick "The Mechanic", but who cares, as every fan knows that Italian cinema loves to borrow ideas from popular American blockbusters. Yul Brynner is still the total definition of coolness, even though he clearly didn't put too much passion into his performance of the ageing assassin. His bald head, his eyes (that appear to malfunction) and his sneaky smile are enough to make his character convincing! Martin Balsam is another veteran actor whose character isn't really important, but it's still very nice to have him around. Antonio Margheriti is in my humble opinion Italy's most underrated cult director and "Death Rage" is another amiable effort in his repertoire.