Verdict
Summary
An unflattering crime drama with star Silva at the center, Cry of a Prostitute is never what I’d call “fun” or “entertaining” thanks to a joyless performance by Silva and a thoroughly European style that doesn’t even try to be American, despite having an American star in the middle of it.
Plot:
A heartless assassin is called in to Italy to perform some hits to settle a mafia war.
Review:
A cold-hearted American assassin named Tony (Henry Silva looking stone-faced) is called in to Italy to go to war with a crime syndicate that is warring against the mafia. If anyone can go blazing into a crime war in Italy, it’s Tony. With alliances on both sides, he begins making his hits on the hoods that are on his list, but by killing someone close to his employer, he ends up on the hit list for both sides of the war. It doesn’t help him at all when he ends up falling in lust with the wife of his employer, a former prostitute named Margie (Barbara Bouchet). After several, um, awkward tussles with Margie (their first indiscretion is up against a hanging slab of bloody meat), Tony becomes enemy #1 for his employer. In a final showdown between Tony and everyone, the tides turn for the warring crime syndicates, who vastly underestimate Tony, a human version of The Terminator, with only one mandate: to stay alive and accomplish his mission.
An unflattering crime drama with star Silva at the center, Cry of a Prostitute is never what I’d call “fun” or “entertaining” thanks to a joyless performance by Silva and a thoroughly European style that doesn’t even try to be American, despite having an American star in the middle of it. It sort of resembles A Fistful of Dollars / Yojimbo, and at its core, it’s basically a western, complete with a gun battle showdown and massacre at the end. I can’t say I “liked” it, but there is still an audience for crime thrillers such as this one, with all its violence and twisted sex mixed in. From director Andrea Bianchi.
Code Red has just released a Blu-ray edition of this one, and it features a 2017 HD scan with extensive color correction, and it comes with the original US version of the opening credits, but the USA trailer.
