FilmCriticLalitRao Italian director Mario Bava's cult classic 'Cani Arrabbiati' is a study of criminal minds in closed spaces. 'Mad Dogs' was considered to be lost but due to its leading lady Lea Lander's efforts, its glory has been restored enabling fans of horror and exploitation cinema to discover a lost classic. Director Bava shows the wickedness of criminals in closed spaces where they tend to be more vicious as there is no possibility for them to vent their anger through any outlet. As a heist film with utter disregard for human life, highest limits of cruelty are reached in 'Mad Dogs' when two criminals deliberately choose to unleash a fury of sexual violence against the lone woman occupant of a moving car. It is with bawdy jokes and sickening violence that ruthless criminals are able to subdue a weak woman. The film also raises a lot of questions about the inadequacy of police forces in Italy as three hoodlums are shown to have taken the entire city to ransom. Although the film boasts of a solid beginning and a fairly decent middle part, its ending was a huge disappointment as the 'dénouement' didn't match at all with what was being shown to viewers. In 'Rabid Dogs', something is fishy with the way the film progresses can be guessed immediately after the beginning of the film if an observant viewer chooses to watch with attention how the driver seemed to be utterly lost in his own preoccupations. Lastly, one must wait till the end of the film to find how the end as well as the beginning of this film were closely related.

Darkling_Zeist Mario Bava fashions a lean an' mean, exhilarating kidnap yarn, including yet another protean performance from George Eastman. 'Rabid Dogs' is a masterclass of dynamic, economical film-making. Set mostly within the cloying confines of a sweltering automobile; a clearly mean-spirited, Bava's ratchets the tension up to an almost impossibly frantic degree, with the total lack of digressions keeping the pace brisk with frank outbursts of savage violence that suddenly jolt you far out of your comfort zone. 'Rabid Dogs' is Stylish, brutal Italian action cinema at its very finest. Not only was Mario Bava the absolute master of mood, atmosphere and exemplary lighting in Gothic cinema; his obvious mastery of gritty Euro Crime action is yet more demonstrative evidence of his grand cinematic legacy.

Claudio Carvalho After the heist of the payment of the employees of a chemical industry where the treasurer and a security guard are murdered, the driver of the runaway car of the criminals Dottore (Maurice Poli), Bisturi (Don Backy) and Trentadue (Luigi Montefiori) is shot and a bullet hits the gas tank. The car runs out of gas and the trio is forced to run to the parking lot of a mall where they kill one woman and kidnap her friend Maria (Lea Lander) and use her car to escape from the police. They are chased by the police but they carjack the car of the middle-aged Riccardo (Riccardo Cucciolla), who is driving his unconscious ill son to the hospital for an emergency surgery. They force the calm RIccardo to drive them out of the city using secondary roads to escape from the blocks in the highway. During the trip, the tension increases but Riccardo and Dottore manage to control the situation until an unexpected conclusion. "Rabid Dogs" is a masterpiece of tension and suspense of Mario Bava. The immediate association that I made was with the famous Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" that is visibly inspired in this movie, but less realistic and tense. This is the first time that I have seen "Rabid Dogs" and the dialogs and situations are still very impressive; imagine thirty-five years ago the impact of this movie. The claustrophobic location inside a car where most of this feature was shot transmits the horror of Maria with the cruelty and sadism of Bisturi (that means scalpel and not blade) and Trentadue. The final twist is totally unexpected but makes a perfect sense to the plot. Now I intend to see the restored version "Kidnapped" also available on the DVD. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): Not Available

ElijahCSkuggs Story revolves around a rag group of robbers who are on the run from the policia. Instead of making a calculated plan to steal their loot they instead go for the guns blazing type of robbery. Yay for us! They do get the cash but they end up losing one of their own, the driver. With their plan unraveling they need a car and need it fast, and that's when they take a driver-by hostage and force him to drive them to their safe-house. All the while they have another hostage in the back who's easy on the eyes. And to make matters worse the car they took hostage also has a sick young child in it. Three violent robbers and three civilians in a tiny car while running from the cops makes one entertaining picture.The film premise is cool but to truly make this film work is the characters. And all do their job very well. Each character is memorable and have their own important parts to the film. The bad guys in Rabid Dogs were extra memorable as they played their parts in an over the top way, with wild eyes, maniacal laughing and mannerisms and just an energy that this film needed to keep the viewer enthralled.Rabid Dogs was a film I've been meaning to see for a while and I'm glad I finally did. I always got it confused with Straw Dogs, which I still need to see as well. But Rabid Dogs was a cool flick that instantly became one of my favorites in the crime/thriller genre.