At the beginning of the eighties, Sirio, a young worker of the Terni steelworks with a past in student protesting, decides to abandon his job to join an extreme left-wing group. Although he declares himself contrary to the armed struggle following the decision by some elements of the group to carry out terrorist actions, he is arrested upon being caught with his best friend Apache.

A judge on crusade to take down the Italian Mafia uses a gangster turned state's witness (a so-called "repenter") and a New York banker to do it. But things aren't quite what they seem.

Django comes to town to discover that his brother Steve, accused of robbing a bank, has been lynched. Django believes the real culprit is Sartana and challenges him to a duel. Just in time he discovers that the author of the crime is an important local figure and Django and Sartana join forces to punish him.

A man who neglects his wife and is out of touch with their teenage daughter believes he is justified in having a gun available for the defense of person, family and property.

Dallesandro gives a shockingly good performance in this gritty, hard-hitting crime flick. He plays a hungry young buck who aspires to be a career criminal. He starts out working at a warehouse for a gangster where he helps to relocate illegal contraband, and because of his ruthlessness and dependability he begins to ascend the ladder of organized crime. Of course, the more powerful he becomes, the more "Climbers" come out of the shadows to take his place. THE CLIMBER is a violent, stylish little film with a good script, cool music (mostly heavy rock) and a frenetic structure that kept me glued to the screen. It's a story concept that has been worked and re-worked time and again, sometimes to hokey effect, but here it works and feels original. If you enjoy tough gangster movies, or Dallesandro's work, you owe it to yourself to track it down. Good luck finding a nice print, though.

This is a good film, good solid performances and a compulsive if somewhat cliched storyline. The main problem is that it seems at times that it would like to be on a par with hollywood big budget productions, and it really is much too home grown Italian for that. Nevertheless, on its own merits this is well worth a visit, Nero is as good as always and Fabio Testi is magical, it is a mystery why he did not become one of the giant names of international cimema.