Known also as "Ricco" and "The Cauldron of Death", this 1973 Italan schlockfest stars the ridiculously uninteresting Christopher Mitchum (son of Robert) as Ricco Aversi, girl-magnet and all-around bad-ass, recently out of prison and out to revenge his father and take down Don Vito (Arthur Kennedy).

This movie has been called "Point Blank" and/or "Get Carter" and starred actual actors like Lee Marvin and Michael Caine. In an interview, Mitchum immediately mentions that he never wanted to be an actor. Boy, does it show. Furthermore, Mitchum is cast as a tough, suave, karate-chopping, devious bad-ass, and comes across as none of those things, making virtually everything he does laughable. Imagine Pee Wee Herman cast as Rambo and you begin to get the idea. Mitchum looks more like a lazy surfer wuss. A wet noodle would do more damage than his kung fu.

Being this film was made in 1973, there is sort of soft porn element to the film as various hot women (Barbara Bouchet, Malisa Longo), disrobe for a wide variety of silly reasons, some of them even involving sex from time-to-time. Bouchet performs a striptease in the middle of a foggy road that passes for Ricco's plan to trick and then disarm a couple of Don Vito's henchmen. Rosa (Longo) is Ricco's former girlfriend and now Don Vito's kept woman whose top just sort of falls off now and again.

Don Vito's preferred method of murder is to toss foes into a acid bath which renders them, given the low budget, waxy. There's also a nice scene where a guy's genitals are cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

I suppose if there were an award for miscasting, "Ricco The Mean Machine" would certainly win it.