Giallo Movie Review 96

 

Giallo is the latest movie directed by a favourite of mine, Dario Argento. I love his work and this movie was very good. It stars Adrien Brody and a cast of Italian actors. I have read some reviews of it and some people really didn't think that it was that good, but I liked it. I watched it from beginning to end and I did not have to press the fast forward button once which is a rarity these days!!

The movie is set in Rome and begins with two Japanese tourists who are out on the town. One of them wants to go back to her hotel while the other has picked up a guy. The young woman gets into a taxi and she tells the driver to go to her hotel. She begins to worry when he doesn't seem to be going in the right direction. Her worry turns into sheer panic when  he drives down an abandoned street and jumps on her before injecting her with something...Cut to a beautiful model called Celine(Elsa Pataky) who is on the phone to her sister, Linda(Emmanuelle Seigner). Linda has come to Rome to visit her sister and she has arrived at her sister's apartment. Celine chats to her sister as she gets into a taxi and she doesn't notice that the taxi driver is not going in the right direction. She gets cut off as she talks to Linda and she tries to get out of the cab but to no avail. We see the creepy guy inject her and she passes out. Her sister Linda wonders what has happened to Celine and she waits for her to arrive home. Celine wakes up in a dingy room with a body on a table dripping with blood..

Linda decides to go to the police and she is sent to see the Inspector Enzo Avolfi(Brody).  He is down in the basement and his office is covered with pictures of dead bodies. He is an eccentric guy who used to be a cop in New York City. He is looking for the killer. Linda tells him about her sister and he tells her that he will get back to her and that she should go home and wait by the phone. Meanwhile, the killer is torturing the young woman he had captured before Celine. Celine has to watch and she is petrified.He is a weird looking man and he seems to love torturing young women for his own pleasure. Enzo is driving and he sees a taxi following him. He thinks that it might be the killer, but it is just Linda following him and he invites her to come with him to try and find out more about her sister's disappearance. We see the killer masturbating to the pictures of his victims. He is one very sick puppy!!!

Enzo and Linda go to find the names of cab drivers and they talk about the killer. Enzo tells Linda that he thinks that the killer has her sister. It seems that the killer seems to target tourists or foreigners. He likes young beautiful women.Enzo thinks about his childhood and we discover that he witnessed his mother being murdered and that is why he wants to track down and jail killers. The cops discover a body, but it is not Celine. It is the young Japanese woman. She mutters a few words in her native language before she dies. Enzo gets it translated and it is one word- yellow. He can't figure it out. Meanwhile, Celine and the killer are alone and she begins to call him ugly. He gets mad at her and he cuts off her finger. While Enzo is looking the the body of the young girl, Linda figures out what yellow means. She thinks that he might be jaundiced from hepatitis.

They go to the hospital to find out the names of people who are treated for hepatitis. The killer happens to be there and he just gets away in time. They find out his name and address and they go to his flat. He isn't there and they cannot find Celine.Enzo gets the cops over to his flat and they look for clus to where he has Celine. Meanwhile, Celine escapes but is caught again. The killer finds Linda and he tells her that if she helps him get away, he will tell her where her sister is. She agrees and she is helping him to get away when Enzo comes along and kills him. Linda is furious as now they don't know where Celine is. The movie ends with a security guard in a parking lot who hears noises coming from a taxi....It is Celine....

I liked this movie a lot and I would watch it again. Very good offering from Argento and I look forward to more movies from him in the future....This gets a 9/10