Even Angels Eat Beans (3 Stars)

The film takes place in New York in the 1930's. Those were dark days of poverty and mass unemployment. It was practically impossible to make money by honest means.

Ex-wrestler Charlie, played by Italian superstar Bud Spencer, is visiting a soup kitchen run by the Salvation Army. He meets Sonny, who's only recently joined the Salvation Army. While they're talking, the police try to break up the soup kitchen, because it's being run without a license. Charlie and Sonny beat up the police, which impresses some gangsters who see the action. The two men are hired as enforcers by the mob boss Don Angelo.

While working in a speakeasy they see a man winning a lot of money at the roulette table, so they beat him up and take all his chips. Afterwards they're told that he's a US Senator, so they're given a job as debt collectors instead. This isn't a job they're good at. They have too much sympathy with the poor immigrants who're in debt. Unable to collect the debts, they steal money from a rival gang, which starts a gang war.

Despite enjoying the typical Bud Spencer humour, something irritated me about the film. It wasn't until the last half hour that I realised what the problem was. Bud Spencer can't play a bad guy. He's a good actor, but he's so big and cuddly that he just can't be taken seriously as a gangster walking the streets of New York with a machine gun. I cringed every time he got into gun fights, even though it was Sonny who killed the most people.

The film is only available on Blu-ray in Italian with German subtitles, but it's available on Amazon Prime dubbed into English. It's not a film I can recommend to Bud Spencer fans. He's too out of character.