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JUST HOW PERFECT IS YOUR PLAN? A true high point in 70s Italian thriller cinema, this inspired remake of Hitchcock s Strangers on a Train from director Maurizio Lucidi is able to push the concept of the original movie into something far more unbearably tense and deliciously twisted. Stefano (Thomas Milian; Traffic, Amistad, JFK) needs to sort out his troublesome wife who is seriously cramping his future plans. A chance meeting with a wealthy Count Matteo (Pierre Clemente) leads to an extraordinary plan where both will do each other a murderous favour to free them from the people who ail them. The problem is Stefano treats this as a joke whilst Matteo is deadly serious and what he does drives Stefano to the edge of sanity in a gripping race against time! Shot in a mist-wreathed eerily beautiful Venice this near dream-like melding of thriller with baroque giallo overtones has remained until now a criminally hidden psychological gem.
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 0 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), Italian ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (1.78:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Anamorphic Widescreen, Deleted Scenes, Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, Remastered, Scene Access, Uncut, SYNOPSIS: Tomas Milian portrays a cheating husband named Stefanio who falls into a strange relationship with the bohemian Count Mateo (Pierre Clementi) in this intriguing thriller. Earning his trust, Mateo lures Stefanio into a sick psychological game, offering to murder his wife so that the unhappy businessman can be free to pursue his beautiful mistress (Katia Christine). In return, he continues, Stefanio must kill Mateo's brother. Stefanio laughs off the suggestion until the day that his wife is actually murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. As Stefanio's troubles increase, Mateo applies more pressure, finally forcing his frantic, desperate victim to fulfill his part of the bargain. Fine performances and some blatantly Hitchcockian moments in Fulvio Gicca's screenplay help to make director Maurizio Lucidi's film tense and absorbing, if somewhat predictable. ...The Designated Victim ( La Vittima designata ) ( Slam Out )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a great piece of film-making.It's stylish with a brilliant,ambiguous storyline and smart,well dressed actors.The suspense gets really cranked up and the ending will blow you away.Wonderful.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The Designated Victim, an Italian thriller from the 70's. As it turned out, it was pretty watch-able stuff. Shameless have pieced together from various sources material of varying quality to create the most complete version of the film. At times it looks quite poor, and at other times, the picture looks like perfect DVD standard. I've never understood why some films feel the need to replay the same piece of music over and over during certain events.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The Designated Victim is one of those once-rare films that's developed a small cult following that the film itself doesn't really justify now it's more widely available. It's a spin on Strangers on a Train (sans train) that sees Tomas Milian's architect befriended by Pierre Clementi's aristocrat, looking like a fey Eurotrash androgynous vampire with a touch of Russell Brand, who offers to swap murders with him. He'll kill Milian's wife who won't let him sell his share in the advertising business they started with her money, and Milian will kill Clementi's brother. Naturally, Milian doesn't take it seriously until his wife is murdered and a mounting trail of incriminating evidence paints him into a corner where the only way to prove he's not a murderer is to commit murder... which should all be much more interesting than it plays out. Milian's character is more interesting than his equivalent in the Hitchcock film: morally compromised, forging his wife's signature to seal the deal but the kind of half-hearted criminal who still deposits a fifth of his ill-gotten gains in her account to salve his conscience. Unfortunately, Clementi seems stuck playing someone who's more an affectation than a real person and their relationship simply isn't interesting enough to carry a film this sedate. It's not a giallo and barely even a thriller for most of its running time, more one of those stories of moral decay and inertia set partially in the grim out of season Venice so beloved of filmmakers who weren't in a hurry to tell a story in the 70s. And director Maurizio Lucidi certainly is in no hurry here as the film slowly ambles to its all too predictable twist ending. Indeed, it's all too easy to see why the film was cut, though at least one cut abbreviates a crucial scene regarding Clementi's motivation to kill (he rather likes the idea of taking God's job himself).
Shameless' reconstructed UK DVD isn't quite the uncut film - some snippets are relegated to the deleted scenes bin while the restored footage is pretty easy to spot by the changing aspect ratio - but it's certainly a good presentation of a not really good enough 'lost' movie. If only it weren't so... well, dull.
Shameless' reconstructed UK DVD isn't quite the uncut film - some snippets are relegated to the deleted scenes bin while the restored footage is pretty easy to spot by the changing aspect ratio - but it's certainly a good presentation of a not really good enough 'lost' movie. If only it weren't so... well, dull.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
the designated victim.
Milian plays Stefano Argenti, a successful advertising designer who wants to sell his share of the company and move back to his native Venezuela. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Puzzle box
who is the victim??
I am quite a fan of Shameless. They present good quality (where available) prints of long unseen Giallo movies, with on the whole good notes. Read more
Published 15 months ago by A. W. Wilson
The Designated Victim
Stefano (Tomas Milian) is a weathly married buisness man who is having an affair with Fabienne Béranger (Katia Christine) a famous model and he wants to sell his company and... Read more
Published 19 months ago by A. J. Harrison
great remastered version
This is a crime film from Italy from the early 1970's and it's a remake of a earlier film.
It's got a great print that isn't falling apart like other companies releases of... Read more
It's got a great print that isn't falling apart like other companies releases of... Read more
Published on 24 May 2010 by Michael P. Dobey
beautiful
Had this on the shelf for awhile now..just got round to watching it..sunday afternoon,closed curtains..Well all I can say it's totally beautiful.. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2009 by Minky Starshine
Another winner from Shameless
Shameless yet again bring us long suffering UK folk another previously unavailable giallo gem. The film has been restored to it's fullest version and looks fantastic ( aside from... Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2009 by TimmyC
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