By Fred Blosser
In
1983, a serial killer claims more than a dozen lives in and around Rome,
apparently targeting his victims at random, and then disappears. The killer leaves his signature in blood at
each crime scene: “Canepazzo,†or “Crazy Dog.†Thirty years later, Marco Costa (Gian Marco Tavani), the son of one of
the victims, interviews Raul Chinna (Marco Bonetti), a retired criminologist. Obsessively pursuing Canepazzo’s decades-cold
trail, Costa hopes that he can unearth clues from Chinna’s old investigative
files. Who was Crazy Dog, why did he
murder Costa’s father, and why did he abruptly end his bloody spree? If he’s still alive, can Marco locate him and
avenge his father’s death? Revealing that the man who knew the most about the
crimes was a young investigative reporter, David Moiraghi (Giuseppe Schisano), Chinna begins to recount
a sequence of events based on Moiraghi’s interrogations of witnesses and
examinations of the murder scenes.
The
back-of-the-case blurb on the One7Movies 2014 DVD release of “Crazy Dog†likens
David Petrucci’s 2012 movie to the Italian giallo
and polizio thrillers of the Cinema
Retro era. Petrucci underscores the
homage by casting three 1970s Italian genre icons -- Marco Bonetti, Franco
Nero, and Tinto Brass -- in prominent roles. Another influence would seem to be the long-running U.S. TV series “Cold
Case†(2003-2010), in Petrucci’s structure of a present-day investigator
delving into a decades-old mystery, with period-detail flashbacks to the
crime. There’s a trace of Fritz Lang’s
“M†(1931) as well, when a Rome crime boss strongarms his way into Moiraghi’s
investigation for reasons of his own.
“Crazy
Dog†exhibits some of the limitations of a multi-tasking auteur working
independently on a limited budget. (Petrucci produced, edited, and directed from a script by Igor
Maltagliati.) The cast of primary
characters is small, many scenes are driven either by lengthy dialogue or
conversely by dialogue-free montage, and some of the actors are more effective
than others. A scene centering on Nero
as a loquacious, crackpot artist runs on for far too long, but Cinema Retro
fans will feel inclined to forgive Petrucci: if you land Nero for a film, and
you probably can afford only a limited amount of his time, who wouldn’t make
the most of the opportunity? The framing
device of the present-day interview with the retired criminologist seems
confining at first, but as Maltagliati’s story progresses, the reason for
constructing the movie in that way becomes ingeniously clear.
One7Movies’
Region 0 DVD is well executed. Colors
are vivid and details are sharp in the movie’s 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The DVD uses the Italian-language print of
the film and provides subtitles in English. The disc includes two extras: the film’s original trailer and a photo
gallery. The One7Movies Region 0 DVD of
“Crazy Dog†can be ordered HERE.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON