Ricco The Mean Machine

It’s not all that difficult to be vicious if you set your mind to it. All it really takes is a box of nails, some neighbourhood pets, and a solid afternoon’s work. Alternatively, you could help Eli Roth make another sequel to Hostel. To be casually sadistic, however, is a real challenge, and there’s where Italian exploitation classic Ricco The Mean Machine excels.

The film stars Christopher Mitchum as Ricco, a young man freshly released from prison. Though he looks as if he’d been jailed for selling magic mushrooms at a Jefferson Starship concert, apparently Ricco is a dangerous master of the deadly art of Karate, or more accurately, the art of jerkily chopping his hand around in poor synchronization with bad foley. Ricco’s father, a mob boss, was killed by a rival who also took the time to steal Ricco’s girlfriend. Still, despite these injustices, Ricco seems somewhat lackadaisical about seeking revenge, interested more in getting laid than laying waste to his enemies.

And here’s where the film gets strange. Ricco does hunt for his father’s killer, and the film features plenty of the nudity and violence that defines 70s exploitation, but it lacks conviction for the most part. The violence is almost an afterthought, sort of a throwaway concession to fans of the genre. Despite the cruelty of the film, which includes a particularly graphic castration scene, Mitchum’s performance is strangely lighthearted and affable, as if Ferris Beuller went on a killing spree. Then, abruptly, the film snaps out if its reverie and goes berserk, as if the Quaaludes wore off and the film remembered it was on PCP.

All told, Ricco The Mean Machine is a bizarre experience for the viewer, though not altogether an unpleasant one. Director Tulio Demicheli allows little visual flair to interfere with the parade of sex and violence on screen, and writers Mario di Nardo, José Gutierrez Maesso, and Santiago Moncada don’t leave a lot of down time between action scenes. Though the film does drag a touch in the middle, the steam it picks up towards the end more than makes up for the uneven pacing, the occasionally shoddy performance, and the casual sadism.

Rating: 7 on 10

alkratina@comicbookbin.com