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South African grindhouse exploitation! Check it out!
A fight is being fixed tonight in Johannesburg, despite one boxer's reluctance to take a dive. "Persuade him... Ask him how he's gonna box without any fingers," bossman Lefty Malangu tells an underling. But as Lefty gets into his pink Cadillac with his hoochie mama and a bottle of hooch, a tow truck drives up and rams his car multiple times. Trapped inside the battered vehicle, Lefty and his squeeze are sitting ducks for the cat who steps out of the truck with a rifle and pumps multiple rounds into the car.
Old friends Lieutenant Ben Deel (Nigel Davenport) and local reporter for the World Steven Choko (Ken Gampu) show up at the crime scene to survey the damage and trade bad one liners, and shortly afterwards a manifesto from a group calling themselves War on Crime is delivered to the World news desk. True to their word, the publicity-hungry vigilante group calls Choko to inform him that their next target is one Styles Kwala, pimp and extortionist. And sure enough, Styles soon gets blown through a shop window by a shotgun pointed out the window of a passing muscle car.
Choko is all over the story, and he catches some shit for it from the police who, finding his advance knowledge of the hit suspicious, begin to think he's some kind of militant sympathizer. But he also catches a lead: while drinking at a bar one night he's approached by an anonymous stranger who offers the reporter an exclusive on the War on Crime. Choko takes the bait, meeting with the group's shadowy leader "Mr. X" (Madala Mphahlele) for a lecture on The Cause. Not wanting to be seen as indiscriminate killers, these "outlaws in the service of the law," as Mr. X puts it, aim to divert resources currently being wasted through drugs, extortion and the like into improving the quality of life in the black community. To prove his point, Mr. X advises Choko to be at Beverly Airport the next day. And with that, the meeting is over.
Choko shows up at the airfield, but not before transmitting a sketch of Mr. X that he's had worked up to some associates in an attempt to get a make on the mystery man. Joining the reporter is Deel (seemingly unperturbed about facing some potentially heavy criminal activity with only a journalist for back-up), and disguised as mechanics the two men dick around, eat fried chicken and drink beer as they stake the place out. It's not long before a small plane flies in for a landing, met by a station wagon on the ground as the Seventies soundtrack kicks into high gear. Bags are exchanged, and the cop and his reporter partner swing into action. Deel whips out his gun and starts blasting away as Choko goes after the plane, trying to physically prevent it from taking off even as it taxis down the runway. In a matter of seconds you've got dead bodies, a car wreck and a fuel drum explosion...but the plane gets away.
Choko's just finished writing the article covering these daring exploits when he receives another self-serving call from Mr. X. This time the call is traced, leading Deel to an abandoned warehouse in the countryside. Where he finds nothing but an old building, empty except for some trash and a couple of telephones. Visiting an officer of the phone company, a Mr. Alcock, Deel is told that these are dormant lines, the use of which isn't monitored. It appears the corporate dick doesn't have dick to offer the investigation, but the moment the Lieutenant leaves Alcock is on the phone to Mr. X, his white ass shaking with nerves as he finds himself caught between the cops and a harder place.
"The Chinaman" is next on War on Crime's hit list, and his dope shipment is bloodily intercepted on a country road outside 'The Farm'. ("Now, let's see what we have: one dead policemen, two dead Chinamen, about three sacks of grass, and a lot of chickens. Clear as day," says Deel as he tallies the score later.) And it looks like Alcock may be headed for the same end, as he makes the mistake of telling Mr. X that, having been braced again by Lt. Deel, he may have to spill everything to the police. Somehow Mr. X convinces Alcock to meet with him first, and when Deel tails the phone man to the designated spot he watches as Alcock is gunned down with a sawed-off shotgun wielded by Tullio, the same W.O.C. soldier who blasted Styles the pimp. A high-speed dirt road car chase ensues, followed by a running gun battle through the woods and gardens of outlying country estates. It comes to a showdown across the yard setting of a little girl's tea party...but of course Deel shoots the assassin and the little girl is unharmed. (It's a feel-good crime drama.)
Choko and his hang glider collars step out to feed the ducks, during which time the reporter stews over the current situation. Realizing the police department feels that he's a little too sympathetic towards the militants, Choko pays a visit to Deel to straighten things out. But the police Captain has declared Choko a liability, a potential leak who could sabotage the investigation, and Deel is thus unable to pass along any new leads. This doesn't stop the two men from trading a few ideas however...
Later Choko is braced in a restroom by gangland figurehead Chops, who is under the mistaken impression that Choko is the unofficial front for the War on Crime. He wants Choko to arrange a sit-down with the organization, but when he realizes Choko can't swing this Chops backs down and instead pleads with the reporter to run a story saying that the gangster is retiring from his life of crime and leaving the country.
Choko does so, but it's a little late for evasive tactics: Craig, the hippie-lookin' W.O.C. hitman who took out The Chinaman, blasts his way through Chops' stronghold and wastes the man himself. This displeases Mr. X, as he had gotten the message that Chops was leaving the picture voluntarily. But more infuriating is the fact that Craig's out-of-place girlfriend Heather was about to leave the city alive after accidentally learning of the War on Crime's clandestine drug-smuggling operation; it appears that the militants may actually be using the "War on Crime" as a cover-up for taking down the competition, allowing more free reign for their own criminal enterprise. As this knowledge would sway public opinion away from The Cause, not to mention drawing even more attention from the authorities, this is information that Mr. X simply cannot afford to have floating around.
So, Craig goes to the airport (which, oddly, is completely empty except for he and Heather), and shoots his old lady twice in the belly. Returning to Mr. X's mansion hideout, Craig is himself taken out, one less volatile loose end in what is turning out to be a rather massive international criminal conspiracy.
Choko's contacts at the international police bureau have by now somehow managed to track down the real name and background of the increasingly interesting Mr. X: he is really an American expatriate formerly associated with the Mafia named Luther Daniels, AKA Martin King, AKA Snowman, AKA Mr. Clean.
The pieces fall into place and Choko hits the street, hard on the prowl for the con artist formerly known as Mr. X. The wily crime reporter stakes out one of Daniels' dealers, shakes down a junkie barmaid, and before long finds himself doing the nighttime creepy-crawl outside of Daniels' mansion. Not being quite as sly a detective as he thinks he is however, Choko is nabbed and forced at gunpoint to escort a gang of hoods back to the offices of the World to retrieve the file he's assembled on Mr. X. In the darkened newsroom Choko seizes the opportunity to make a run for it, and after a brief skirmish he manages to get away, hotly pursued by the enraged gangsters.
A violent cat-and-mouse game plays out in the warehouse/parking lot complex nearby, with the body count rising toward the film's inevitable bloody conclusion.
Tough-ass, no-nonsense, and custom-made for the drive-in, this 1978 re-release is packed with action as well as vintage threads and sounds. The story itself is simple yet clever enough to be engaging, what with its reveling in the age-old theme of gangland betrayal and murder, and contains a sufficient number of incidental characters being stripped away through violence to keep things moving at a brutal pace. Could have used some titties, though.
As a foreign Seventies crime film with a predominantly black cast, DEATH OF A SNOWMAN can't help but bring another gem to mind, THE HARDER THEY COME. Granted, Snowman doesn't have as good a soundtrack or quite as colorful a setting, and Mr. X is no Johnny Too Bad, but still, it's pretty fucking cool.
The lighting's not always so good, and the sets are pretty low rent, but in a way this just adds grit rather than detracting from the picture's style (low budget as it may be).
Not too heavy on the bonus features, but then again you can kind of expect that when the novelty of "Chapter Selections" is listed as a "Special Feature." But you do get the original theatrical trailer, plus cover art by Wes Benscoter.
