Quelli Dell’antirapina 4 Minuti Per 4 Miliardi [Four Billion in Four Minutes] ** (1976, Antonio Sabato, John Richardson, Vassili Karis) – Classic Movie Review 12,589

Two crooks carry out a heist on a Genoese bank, taking four billion lire. It has been masterminded from jail by smooth criminal Francesco Vitale, aka the Lawyer (John Richardson). He is sprung from jail by the crooks, but a cellmate, Raffaele (Antonio Sabato), insists on coming out too.

Co-writer/ director Gianni Siragusa’s 1976 film Four Billion in Four Minutes is a pretty basic, grungy-looking Italian heist action thriller, fairly scrappily made and poorly edited, with a regulation story, ordinary performances, and not much sense of style. But it is entirely watchable, partly thanks to its pulpy feel, and a lot thanks to the location filming at Rapallo, Genoa, Liguria, Italy. The last-minute twist is inadvisable, and you can see it coming some way off. Antonio Sabato and John Richardson are kind of okay as the leads, but nothing special. Lea Lander vamps amusingly as the femme fatale Peggy.

The cast are Antonio Sabato as Raffaele, John Richardson as Francesco Vitale, Vassili Karis as Aldo, Attilio Severini as Sandro, Lea Lander as Peggy, Serafino Profumo as Marco, Giovanni Brusadori, Pippo Pollaci as carcerato (convict), and Saverio Mosca as direttore carcere (jail boss/ prison director).

Quelli dell’antirapina translates as Those of Anti-Robbery.

English actor John Richardson (19 January 1934 – 5 January 2021).

Both stars died from COVID-19 during the pandemic and just five days apart. Richardson died from COVID-19 on 5 January 2021, aged 86, during the COVID-19 pandemic in England. Antonio Sabàto Sr died from complications of COVID-19 at a hospice in Hemet, California, on 10 January 2021, aged 77.

German film actress Lea Lander (born in 1936 as Lea Krüger), who worked mainly in Italian cinema, is a cousin of actor Hardy Krüger.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,589

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Antonio Sabàto Sr (2 April 1943 – 10 January 2021).