TOUGH TO KILL is a nihilistic Italian war film, following a bunch of soldiers as they trek through the South American wilderness in a hunt for bounty money. It's one of those films with a small cast and plenty of action, featuring characters double-crossing each other throughout. The whole thing has a gritty and downbeat atmosphere that somehow combines with the visuals to offer better than usual entertainment.The film feels a little bit like the Italian WW2 movies of the late 1960s, updated with a downbeat '70s vibe. There are some touches of the Italian cannibal genre, such as the character with a wounded leg, which is no surprise given that the director is none other than Joe D'Amato, the notorious exploitation stalwart. The action is low rent but effective, and the fast pacing means at least that it's never boring. The movie was shot in the Dominican Republic and features Luc Merenda as the amoral hero and Donald O'Brien as the tough major. It reminded me of THE DIRTY SEVEN, a later D'Amato movie with Laura Gemser, which is even better.

Story of a mercenary who infiltrates a mercenary army in order to kidnap one of the other soldiers and bring him back for a reward. the problem is that several other men find out whats going on and insist on being cut in. Once on the march the group begins to turn on each other. Slow to start action film is actually pretty good. If you have the patience to get through the first 25 minutes or so you'll find that the characters are all set up so that once things get into motion people are more than just cardboard cut outs. The print I saw is one of the ones supplied to the now defunct BCI by Crown International and its slightly choppy and seems to have been put together from a number of video sources. I mention this because I've read some reviews of this film that have mentioned poor video quality, which would be understandable since this is the type of film that probably wad a heavy renter in the VHS days and since many budget DVD companies sometimes use VHS copies as their sources you're going to get a warn picture. I like the movie and think that if you like B movie action films you'll want to give it a shot

1st watched 11/23/2002 - 5 out of 10(Dir-Joe D'Amato): Ok action-adventure film with unexpected twist at the end. This Italian film seems like it's trying to sell itself as a Rambo-type movie but it's less of a shoot-em-up and more of an adventure. A `white' mercenary is hired to be one of the guys in the troup but then return an enemy or the proof that this enemy is dead. As members of the troupe catch on to what's really happening they become an interested party to the mercenary's task but then they start dropping like flies and we're left with only a handful. This movie is more about the interaction of that handful, but the problem is that their actions are predictable and characteristic of their type of character in the film. So we basically know what's going to happen until the surprise ending. The ending is kind of a retaliation to how the movie treated the blacks in the story, and this part I liked. But overall, the whole movie is not quite worth the effort to get to the end.

Duri a morire (a.k.a. Tough To Kill) is a movie with a set of balls so large that they drag on the ground. Sam Peckinpah probably would have left the theater with a tear in his eye if he had ever had the chance to see this D'Amato outing.The story, a simple one, concerns Martin, a small-time mafia hitman, who receives word on where he can locate a high-profile political assassin. The bounty on the man is up to one million dollars. The assassin has been doing mercenary work in the jungles of Africa to earn some extra cash. With very little effort, Martin manages to infiltrate the merc squad and gains access to the assassin.Martin, and four others, use a routine attack on a bridge to take the assassin hostage. They set off into the jungle for their rendezvous in Georgeville. They won't all make it. Along for the journey is a congenial villager who seems to act as the group's guardian angel.. or is he?Excellent cinematography helps to pump this film up a little but the bad dialogue manages to deflate it again. What I really enjoyed about Duri a morire was the way D'Amato introduced each of the mercenaries, gave them each a distinct personality, then played with them. He never allows the audience to form a solid opinion of them. I also enjoyed the ending which took me completely by surprise, even despite DAmato's various hints throughout the movie.In closing, Duri a morire is a gritty, low-budget film about brooding men with enough machismo, chest-beating and testosterone for any two Nick Gomez movies. If you you can get around all the violence and silly, tough-guy, one-liners you might actually get a kick out of this film. I sure did!