User Reviews

CONVOY BUDDIES is a straight-up rip-off of the Terence Hill & Bud Spencer comedies that were all the rage in the 1970s. A couple of bumbling oddballs - played by POPEYE star Paul Smith and some mundane Hill lookalike - play truckers who find themselves running a drug shipment, drugs which a gang of mobsters are desperate to get their hands on. The story is slim indeed and merely a backdrop for a series of sight gags and slapstick moments. The overbearing performances become quickly tiresome, although some of the set-piece hijinks, like the usual bar-room braw, are handled adroitly. A pity that the original actors didn't come on board as this might have been a lot funnier with them present.

Doltish, laid-back Toby (lanky Antonio Cantafora) and his hot-tempered, long-suffering buddy Butch (hulking Paul Smith) are a couple of bumbling crooks who get a truck driving job hauling insecticide from Italy to France. Unbenownst to the clueless duo, they're really smuggling guns. A team of equally inept mobsters try to steal the guns to no avail. Director Giuliano Carnimeo, working from a blithely silly script by Sergio Bazzini, whips up a lively, harmless and often hilarious comedic romp that goes heavy on the colorfully broad characters, wildly careening slapstick vehicular carnage, and wacky off-the-wall fisticuffs which includes the inevitable anything-goes protracted barroom brawl. The game cast have a ball with the cheerfully inane material: Smith and Cantafora display an engagingly loose and easy chemistry which keeps the picture humming throughout; they receive fine support from Giuliana Calandra as sweet redhead hooker Rosy, Tony Norton as suave French crime kingpin Frou-Frou, Eduardo Fajardo as fearsome Mafia capo Monsieur Le Renard, and Nello Pazzafini as an antagonistic French seaman. The bouncy score by Juniper, the polished cinematography by Sebastiano Celeste and Vincente Minaya, and the infectiously jaunty theme song are all likewise up to par. Good, goofy fun.

Also known as Simone e Matteo - Un gioco da ragazzi, Simón y Mateo and Kid Stuff, this stars Antonio Cantafora and Paul L. Smith in one of the series of movies they made trying to imitate Terence Hill and Bud Spencer that includes Carambola!, Carambola's Philosophy: In the Right Pocket, We Are No Angels and The Diamond Peddlers.

FVI took it one step further by renaming them in America as Terrance Hall and Bob Spencer. Smith sued, saying The only thing an actor has is his name and if that's taken away, he has nothing." That case was Smith v. Montoro, 648 F.2d 602. Smith alleged that he had acted in the leading role and had a contract granting him star billing. However, when the film was distributed in the U. S. by FVI, his name was stripped from the film. The Ninth Circuit federal court of appeals granted Smith standing to sue the filmmakers, but it is unknown how the case was finally settled. Rumors say that he won.

Toby and Butch (Cantafora and Smith) are dumb criminals moving insecticide from Italy to France but in truth, they don't know that they are smuggling guns. There are also gangsters trying to get the guns but they can't outfight these two.

This was directed by Giuliano Carnimeo (Find A Place to Die, the Sartana films) and written by Sergio Bazzini and Tulio Demicheli. The music - which will repeat throughout and get stuck in your head - is by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, the men who call themselves Oliver Onions.

Matteo and Simone - imitators of the successful spanking champions Bud Spencer and Terence Hill

After the phenomenal audience success of the brawling duo Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, copycat productions quickly emerged that tried to emulate the success of the original. This phenomenon has already been observed in other genres of the Italian film industry.

Matteo and Simone - played by the Italian actor Antonio Cantafore (who a few years earlier also made bella figura alongside the German international star Elke Sommer in the Mario Bava classic "Baron Blood") and the American actor Paul L. Smith - were The duo was most clearly modeled on the great role model Hill/Spencer. There had already been a few films with the two of them when Giuliano Carnimeo took over the direction of this Italian-Spanish co-production in 1975.

The plot is told quickly. Completely burned out, Matteo and Simone (who are called Toby and Butch in the German dub - for whatever reason) are forced to take on every job they can. You are tasked with driving a truck and its load to Marseille. On the way, without being informed, they are supposed to be attacked by four small-time crooks (their leader is played by the American actor Dominic Pinto, who plays his role with a wild grimace). This regularly fails because the two warriors know how to defend themselves. On the way there are crazy chases that end with the four crooks wrecking their car so much that it is split into two parts. When they arrive in Marseille, there is a violent fight in an underground car park, in which Matteo and Simone beat up the four crooks and an accomplice who were waiting for them there, to such an extent that the four are subsequently left with significant injuries. Of course, the gangsters can't take this disgrace and so they plan a counterattack.

Before that happens, Matteo and Simone treat themselves to a cozy evening in the pub. Of course it can't end without a good fight. For no reason at all, the bullies dismantle all the furniture and leave behind a pile of beaten people.

The revenge action of the damaged small-time crooks goes so wrong that they find themselves together in the ambulance. In a showdown on a ship, Matteo and Simone beat up the main crime boss's remaining henchmen. One of these is played by the Spanish actor Fernando Bilbao, who two years earlier had played one of the two main roles in the beating film "Two Great Dogs in Hong Kong". At the end of the film, Matteo and Simone go to Africa, where they should experience further adventures in the next film "Four Fists - Hard as Diamond".

This brawler is one of the less successful works of the genre. This duo's chemistry doesn't work. The spark can't really jump over. The beating scenes are sometimes quite funny, but a lot of it also happens off camera. The image material also does not correspond to any particular quality. You won't find award-worthy scripts in spanking clothes anyway, but this one is particularly bad. The main problem, however, is that there is simply not enough charm and humor.

Only recommended for absolute spanking enthusiasts!