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.
