When you pair the steely gaze of Franco Nero with the unhinged, lip-smacking energy of Telly Savalas, you expect a certain level of Euro-crime carnage. Redneck, known in its native Italy as Senza ragione, delivers that in spades, though it’s a strange, disjointed beast that feels like two different movies glued together by a madman who loves sleaze.

The premise is pure, high-octane 70s trash: Memphis (Savalas, channeling maximum camp) and his partner Mosquito (Nero) botch a jewelry store heist. While fleeing the scene, they carjack a vehicle, only to realize they’ve accidentally kidnapped Lennox Duncan, the 13-year-old son of a British consul. Naturally, this brat becomes their passport out of the country. He’s played by Mark Lester. Yes, the star of Oliver and the man who was a close, long-time friend of Michael Jackson. They were godfathers to each other’s children, and he has claimed to have donated sperm to Jackson, saying that Paris Jackson could be his daughter. Is that the strangest thing that happened in his life? Or would it be when a drunken Oliver Reed brought a prostitute for him for his 18th birthday?

But back to the movie, which is an unpredictable road film that shifts from a gritty crime thriller to a weirdly meditative, occasionally uncomfortable character study of an impressionable kid dragged into a world of violence.

The film starts strong with a frantic, albeit poorly planned, robbery and a classic Italian car chase. However, once the dust settles and the trio hits the road, the pacing hits a wall. Memphis descends into genuine, teeth-grinding insanity, while Mosquito, who is supposed to be the Lennie to Memphis’ George, somehow ends up being the surrogate father figure for young Lennox.

The movie’s middle act is where things get truly bizarre. There’s a strange, unsettling bond that forms between the kidnappers and the kid, culminating in a sequence where the boy watches Mosquito shave that has sparked decades of “Is he looking at the butt?” debate on the internet. It’s exactly the kind of sleazy, confusing Euro-cinema moment that makes me keep watching these movies. And yes, I may be straight, but when Franco Nero bares his ass, you look. 

Savalas is clearly having the time of his life, but he leans so heavily into the camp that his incessant whistling and twitchy mannerisms threaten to swallow the entire movie whole. If you love him, he’s going to push you to hate him, between assaulting and murdering Maria (Ely Galleani), shooting a child, forcing Nero to wear her tiger stripe robe, murdering a dog and then killing an entire family of Germans by pushing their mobile home into a river.

By the way, the girl in that family is played by Lara Wendel, who would be chased by a dog and horribly murdered in Tenebre; she’s also in The Red Monks, Killing Birds, My Dear Killer, The Perfume of the Lady In Black, Ghosthouse, and You’ll Die at Midnight. In my world, that’s what we call a killer resume. Her father was Walter Barnes, a former football player who was a sheriff in High Plains Drifter, Bronco Billy and Smokey Bites the Dust, as well as one of the rangers in Day of the Animals. Her mother and brother also appear in this and are killed by Telly.

Why is Telly — a Green-American born in Long Island — playing an American Southerner who speaks jive? Who thought having a teenage boy watch a naked Franco Nero and then examining his own naked body was a good idea? How many taboos is this movie ready to shoot in the face? 

Maybe it was director Silvio Narizzano, who was born in Quebec and started his career in Toronto-based television before directing movies like Die! Die! My Darling!, Georgy Girl and the insane Carroll Baker and Denis Hopper-starring Bloodbath. Or perhaps it was writers Win Wells, who was also behind The Greek Tycoon, and Masolino D’Amico, a writer on Olivia Hussey’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as Caligula and the Cannon version of Otello.

Anyways, Lester’s father Michael, must have made some contacts in Italy, as he would go on to write and produce Antonio Margheriti’s Codename: Wild Geese. 

What a weird movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.