"Naked Violence" is a crime movie different than some of director Fernando Di Lio's other crime movies, being that it is not action- oriented. Instead, it's a relatively serious and sober look at a rape- murder and the subsequent investigation of it. Parts of this investigation are definitely interesting, the most being the angle of the movie being the teenagers who witnessed the crime but are unwilling to talk about it; it sometimes comes across as an early version of the American movie "River's Edge". However, this angle is eventually more or less abandoned, and the movie becomes somewhat tedious and slow in its second half. Does the movie still have enough interest to make it worth a look? Maybe. If you are interested in seeing a cinematic police investigation that is more realistic than usual, and have enjoyed other movies by Di Lio before, this may be an interesting change of pace.

"I Ragazzi del Massacro" tells the story of the brutal rape and murder of a female teacher by the students in a classroom. The opening scene shows the teacher, the classroom and the students. There's no other sound beside the ominous soundtrack. She's is writing something on the blackboard and then we see the faces of the students. They don't seem about to start singing "To Sir with Love". We see their faces in close-up, the apprehensive look of the teacher. The scene builds to a crescendo till her rape and murder - this is not shown graphically but rather in an elliptical way. We see faces, pieces of flesh, her being undressed, the students crowding her.. Cut! In the next shot her dead body is lying naked and defenseless - it is surrounded by policemen. An investigation is about to begin.The police detective Marco Lamberti (Pier Paolo Capponi) has to interrogate the students of the classroom to know the who, how and why. The students of this school are from the lower classes, come from reformatories, live lives in which poverty and violence are their daily companions. But police detective Lamberti is indignant - all he wishes is to crack some heads. Curiously, after the rape & murder scene, I myself was so full of anger that I felt in sympathy with the cop's indignation. It's funny! On seeing a film, I'm not the one who roots for the cops. Especially if there's a lot of finger wagging and preachiness. But "I Ragazzi del Massacro" doesn't follow the easy way - the crime is shown in all its hideousness, but we are given also brief glimpses into the lives of those students - illness, violence, hopelessness...Lamberti has to find out who started the thing, and he can't lay a finger on the students - they are under age, and Italy, after all, is a democracy.Lamberti is teamed up with a social worker, Livia (Nieves Navarro/Susan Scott). Justice and compassion work hand in hand to find out what happened. But make no mistake. This is not a political film in the strictest sense of the word - it's just a crime flick with a social consciousness.What is remarkable is the honesty and crudity of "I Ragazzi del Massacro". This was very rare at the time. And even now, if the same story were told by Hollywood, it would be transformed into the usual tear-jerker - the tears would be followed by revenge and crowned by beautiful moral lessons.The acting overall is very good - the tough but sensitive Lamberti (Pier Paolo Capponi), the students, the lovely Susan Scott as the social worker etc.. The soundtrack is a gem, it is scary and ominous without being too flashy. The story is well told and there are many surprises in store - it's not a predictable film at all! The film hooked me from the beginning to the end.What are you waiting for? See this film if you can.

Fernando Di Leo was undoubtedly the emperor of Italian crime-cinema during the late 60's and the 70's. The work he did on other genres wasn't exactly impressive (anyone remember "Asylum Erotica"?), but in the area of rough 'n tough exploitation thrillers he was absolutely unequaled. Di Leo has some of the sub genre's classics on his director's repertoire (like "Milano Calibro 9", "Manhunt" and "The Boss") and he even contributed a lot to writing other filmmakers' finest accomplishments, for example Ruggero Deodato's "Live Like a Cop, Die like a Man" and Romolo Guerrieri's "Young, Violent and Dangerous". This "Naked Violence" somewhat predates Di Leo's greatest work, but it certainly is an extremely convoluted and ambitiously scripted gem of Italy's most glorious cinematic cult years. Granted, the title is slightly deceptive and misleading (don't expect to see much nudity, nor violence), but nonetheless the complex screenplay hints at multiple controversial themes, like juvenile delinquency, teenage alcoholism, confused sexuality and rape. The movie opens bizarrely and impressively disturbing, with fuzzy flash-images of an entire classroom of drunken adolescent boys gang-raping their teacher before choking her to death with a handkerchief in the mouth. After the opening credits are finished, we learn that they're all boys with questionable backgrounds and mild criminal records, and the class they were attending actually was some kind of social project to still give them one last chance to normally integrate into society. The slightly unorthodox police inspector Marco Lamberti is charged with the investigation, but the case is very frustrating because the boys turn it into a game of blaming each other and act all innocent. Bit by bit, Lamberti discovers that the influence, as well as the heavy liquor that caused the kids to turn into rapist killers, comes from an adult who always remains in the shadows. This malicious person occasionally uses the young scoundrels for petty crimes, but now he - or she – must have had a reason to revert to murder. The plot of Di Leo's "Naked Violence" is perhaps silly and far-fetched, but the tight dialogs and particularly the powerful acting performances make it rather plausible. Pier Paolo Capponi is splendidly cast as the stubborn cop and also the young cast members are truly convincing in their roles of menacing small-time thugs. The film is overall a bit too talkative and the script reveals too few clues to really get involved in Lamberti's investigation, but the story's evolution is always compelling and worth your complete attention. The flashbacks near the end are atmospheric and a little creepy, and the end-twist is ahead of its time albeit quite silly. Definitely worth purchasing if you're into the more challenging titles of the Italian exploitation-industry.

Another masterpiece I'll remember, the flashbacks in the movie were done really, well. I don't thinlk the story was that good, but DiLeo once again made it into a masterpiece. After any of his movies I seriously can't watch anything else, he's to good. I'm seriously thinking of leaving my Job and becoming a director, and try to continue his legacy. This film, agan is based on the milano of the late 60s, when no one in Italy made real movies about outsider kids, but he dug deep and, as always made a masterpiece