This poliziottesco of sorts isn't quite what I was expecting as lead Franco Nero's plight is only one of several events tackled in the film. The star is ideally cast as a wronged prisoner; however, Riccardo Cucciolla's paranoid character grows in importance in the film's second half. The initial stages are actually akin to bizarre black comedy (detailing all the various eccentric antics of the inmates), which doesn't quite jell with the more serious tone later on; John Steiner (as a despicable lifer) and Georges Wilson (as a dying old-timer) make a particular impression during this first part.
The film - whose translated title, "The Case Is Closed: Forget It", is no better than that of the novel "Many Bars" on which it's based - depicts everybody as corrupt and reprehensible, with even Nero's everyman hero succumbing in the end (indulging in clandestine sexual encounters with a female inmate and keeping silent over Cucciolla's harrowing murder)! Though the score is by Ennio Morricone, it's nothing like the iconic work by the maestro we all know and love - consisting solely of sound effects (in fact, I had first heard of the film by way of a CD featuring some of his oddest soundtracks)!
This was Nero's third of four films he made with director Damiani, all in the same vein; two of them, which I hadn't watched before either, followed this viewing (I had caught up with HOW TO KILL A JUDGE [1974], recently released on R1 DVD by Blue Underground and perhaps the most satisfactory of them, a couple of years ago).
The film - whose translated title, "The Case Is Closed: Forget It", is no better than that of the novel "Many Bars" on which it's based - depicts everybody as corrupt and reprehensible, with even Nero's everyman hero succumbing in the end (indulging in clandestine sexual encounters with a female inmate and keeping silent over Cucciolla's harrowing murder)! Though the score is by Ennio Morricone, it's nothing like the iconic work by the maestro we all know and love - consisting solely of sound effects (in fact, I had first heard of the film by way of a CD featuring some of his oddest soundtracks)!
This was Nero's third of four films he made with director Damiani, all in the same vein; two of them, which I hadn't watched before either, followed this viewing (I had caught up with HOW TO KILL A JUDGE [1974], recently released on R1 DVD by Blue Underground and perhaps the most satisfactory of them, a couple of years ago).