This
Poliziotteschi gets off to such a rip roaring start that it had me chomping
at the bit to see what came next. But it settles down almost immediately
into a more traditional policier with the renegade cop who hates playing
by the rules and an establishment that admonishes him. It stars Luc Merenda
as the cop and Richard Conte as his nemesis. After years in Hollywood, Conte
found himself in demand in the Italian crime films as a suave bad guy. It
is directed by Sergio Martino who hit pretty much every genre there was at
the time as did the writer Ernesto Gastaldi with an emphasis on giallo's.
This nicely leaves out any romance to focus on the investigation and three
car chases, but I kept waiting for another big shoot-out that never comes.
The ending is surprisingly pessimistic about Italy. As if to say, there is
no way to win. A little revenge perhaps though. At the end it is almost as
if Italy is surrendering.
Three prisoners being transported on a train
break out by shooting up a bunch of cops and jumping off the train. They
stop a car and kill both the driver and his little girl. Giorgio (Merenda)
hears that they have been trapped in an area outside of Milan and goes out
there. They seem to be about to surrender when he shoots them dead. This
immediately establishes his bonafide's as a tough cop willing to deliver
justice at the point of a gun. This was a common theme in these Italian Poliziotteschi.
Italy was a mess and crime was everywhere in the 1970s - explaining why these
films were so popular. He gets a slap on his wrist by his commander and also
his mentor. He will do the same again if the opportunity arises and his commander
will probably do the same as well.
But before that the commander is assassinated
right on the street in broad daylight and Giorgio becomes obsessed with finding
the killer - though his new commander keeps telling him not to go outside
the legal lines. His investigation leads him to Padulo (Conte) who has a
group of thugs and bank robbers working for him. He seems though to be a
citizen above suspicion and the cops refuse to touch him. Not Giogio though.
He infiltrates the gang as a driver and we get a few good car chase scenes.
There is more going on though than simply robbing banks - Padulo is part
of a larger organization and is just a middle man - what they really want
is to bring Italy crashing down and to rebuild a New Italy. This feels like
it should have had a sequel to finish the story but that never happened.
