Thehibikiew Not even bad in a good way

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

JasparLamarCrabb A hard boiled thriller that shoots itself in the foot by being far too hyperactive to be either cohesive or very satisfying. For the film's first quarter or so, director Carlo Lizzani pulls together what is essentially a docudrama on the crime wave hitting Milan in the mid to late 1960s. By the time the bandits (led by Gian Maria Volonté) appear, the viewer has already been assaulted by a blitz of sordid images ranging from riots to shootings to prostitution stings. Edited in such a high pitched staccato way, the film leaves one exhausted and, frankly, bored BEFORE the film proper even begins. Nevertheless, the acting is very good with Volonté giving an excellent performance as a degenerate crook passing himself off as morally high and mighty (the type of role Volonté mastered during his career...see INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION or SLAP THE MONSTER ON PAGE ONE). Tomas Milian is the police commissioner and Carla Gravina, María Rosa Sclauzero (as Volonté secretary) and Ray Lovelock are in it too.

R C Viewers expecting conventional gangster shenanigans may find themselves bewildered by this frenetic, postmodern, documentary-styled study of four bank robbers terrorizing Milan. Graced with wit, wild violence, flashes of pop art sensibility, and wonderful music from Riz Ortolani, Bandits in Milan is a unique experience within the crime genre.Scene-eating star Gian Maria Volonte puts in a high energy madman performance as the leader of the gang of bandits, grinning and simpering megalomaniacally throughout (and particularly evil-sounding in the German-dubbed version, Die Banditen von Mailand). A young and innocent-looking Ray Lovelock (billed as "Raymond") also appears to good effect, as does low-key Tomas Milian as the ironic police commissioner.Artful and briskly paced, Bandits in Milan is a lot to absorb (particularly if, like me, you're reading subtitles) and merits multiple viewings. Devotees of art films and action alike are advised to give it at least one shot.

tuco73 Inspired by some shocking criminal events of the time, this is a great and very ingenious piece of cinematography. Shot between a crime flick and a documentary it is extraordinary to see how long before Oliver Stone made his movie this one already had it all: the craziness, the character's excessive performances, the mix of footages (documentary, news, acting), the gratuitous violence... If in the 60's Italy produced some of the most important masterpieces, in the 70's Italy became extraordinarily experimental producing some incredible innovative movies and movie genres (the poliziottesco, Damiani's mafia movies, Argento's gialli, Bava's horrors, the soft porn comedies, Rosi's movie-inchiesta, to name the more famous) This movie has not dated and is still to be recommended to anyone interested in experimental movie-making. A tribute should be dedicated to that supreme actor named Gian Maria Volonte' here in top form.

alby73 I don't include this movie in the 70s Italian crime films genre, since it is just a documentary narrating a true story. The people you see been shot (the man driving the truck, the kid exiting the subway station) were really killed the same way some months earlier in Milan's streets. The film narrates the robbery that took place in a Milan's bank in the fall of 1967, and was realized following the public shock that the whole story generated. That afternoon you could really see an high speed pursuit, with the criminals intentionally shooting innocent people on the street to convince police to stop the chase. I really liked this movie, for the ability of the director of depicting either the mere facts and the mentality of the bandits. Plus, Gian Maria Volonté is so good in portraying the rich criminal guy, who robs banks to "exit the mass". Some dialogs are in the Turin dialect, a northern dialect hard to understand for those like me who come from another region of Italy. Very interesting the way the main characters call the Police: "la Madama" (the Lady), again a northern expression.