The cast is superb, and benefits from two strong lead male performances. Lenzi himself has directed a number of the best Italian films, while nobody will disagree that films such as The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh and The Case of the Bloody Iris make Ernesto Gastaldi one of Italy's finest scriptwriters. It's not long before Milan's toughest cop Inspector Walter Grandi gets on the case and sets into motion a bloodthirsty chain of events! The cast and crew is like a who's who of Italian cinema. Almost Human is graphically violent throughout, and that is certainly no bad thing! The film follows a career criminal known as Giulio Sacci who realises that he's not making a lot of money out of small time crime and so hatches a plot to kidnap a wealthy man's daughter and hold her for ransom.

The film takes obvious influence from successful American films such as Dirty Harry, but it's also obvious that Lenzi has added his own spin on the sub-genre, as the sadistic director implants a lot of scenes that wouldn't be out of place in an exploitation film. Umberto Lenzi's Almost Human is a film that takes in all the best elements of seventies Italian cinema and blends it all into one deliriously entertaining thriller! Umberto Lenzi is, of course, more famous for his cannibal and zombie films but I have it on good authority that his real talent lies in police thrillers, and even though this is my first Poliziotteschi from Lenzi it appears that would indeed be the case.

La odia