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The grim title (cf. Lumet's The Offence) belies a peppy hybrid of genres, beginning at a Milanese dance hall with a joking nod to Pasolini. "Not many honest people around here, only thieves and whores." The victim (Patricia Castaldi) is part of a trafficking ring specializing in jailbait and dope, the last thing she sees is her reflection on the killer's mirrored shades. The police captain (Carlo Alighiero) is more interested in soccer scores, a young pickpocket (Adolfo Caruso) who's a ringer for Huntz Hall makes off with his briefcase and is forcibly recruited to aid the plainclothes inspector (Claudio Cassinelli). Clues point to a scruffy pimp (Franco Alpestre), extra digging ropes in a wave of kidnappings and the dead girl's banker uncle (Massimo Girotti), "science fiction of the worst kind" per the superintendent (Mel Ferrer). "Are you asking us to investigate, or overthrow the government?" At the junction of giallo and poliziotteschi, Sergio Martino gives the messy panoply of Italy smack in the middle of the "anni di piombo." The hero's dilapidated car comes in handy during a chase, his sidekick removes the wobbly door and chucks it at pursuers in a sequence founded not on The French Connection but What's Up, Doc? Another bravura bit of slapstick action kicks off with a shootout on a rollercoaster and ends underground with a subway collision, elsewhere the stalking of a prostitute (Lia Tanzi) is staged with a wide-angle POV shot that gets splashed with a pot of boiling water. All the way to the tunnel in the border, an acerbic distrust of men in power. "Find yourself a decent profession... like safecracking." Bertolucci in Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man modulates the situation from another angle. With Jenny Tamburi, Barbara Magnolfi, Gianfranco Barra, Roberto Posse, and Fiammetta Baralla.
--- Fernando F. Croce |