This Italian suspenser seems to take the American film DOG DAY AFTERNOON as its main source of inspiration, as after a hit-and-miss first half it turns into a tense hostage drama with a restaurant (!) replacing the more typical bank-and-cashiers scenario. The structure of the film is unusual, to say the least, as there is no definite beginning, middle or end. The film just carries on until a logical conclusion and presents the "facts" in a cold, realistic fashion. Once again, as with Umberto Lenzi's polizia films, the theme is of the young, oppressed working classes taking revenge against the middle and upper classes by torturing, raping and murdering them. Only to make matters more complicated, one of the two criminals is himself a member of the upper class elite, turned over to the dark side (as it were) via drugs and easy persuasion.
The film opens as a static social drama and takes about twenty minutes to become focused. This is the genuinely shocking moment when an innocent young girl and her middle-aged neighbour are brutally raped by the pair of doped-up thugs and the older woman ends up being gruesomely stabbed to death. The pair flee and then embark on the usual anti-social activities; beating up folk, stealing, and generally causing a disturbance. The film really comes together during the initial hostage situation which then becomes drawn-out overnight. What follows is a tense, gripping drama which becomes increasingly harder to watch as various hostages are killed, suffer and are subjected to sexual intimidation by the two anti-heroes. The police presence - led by a moustachioed inspector - talks a lot and negotiates, but their efforts prove to be a failure on the most part.
Although the trappings of the polizia genre are present and correct, this is by no means a typical crime thriller. Instead it fits into the small sub-genre of hostage/negotiation movies and stands as a well-made and suspenseful example of such. Technical values are a plus, with great filmography and a wonderful exciting piece of music which pops up occasionally. Although short on action sequences, the film has plentiful bloody violence and nudity to appeal to the exploitation market. The acting is generally of a high standard, especially with the two leads Mario Cutini and Marco Marati who manages to develop their characters convincingly into three-dimensional human beings instead of being stock bad guys. DAY OF VIOLENCE is a mainly forgotten film these days, which is a shame because it ranks as one of the stronger examples of adult Italian cinema, treading the fine line between being shocking and in bad taste.
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