1976 was a busy year for John Saxon, who notched up five Poliziotesschi films as well as appearing in a half a dozen television shows like the Rockford Files and...other stuff. I think he may have also been a temporary member of Tangerine Dream and was the Pope's double a few times during public appearances, as well as being the manager of Montrose Football Club and a mobile Disc Jockey in East Lancashire for a spell.
Here we find Saxon as a very angry cop in the city of Bari, angry because someone has gunned down a key witness to the mob being jerks and he can't get the guy convicted, not least because the guy is the brother of grizzled, blind mafia boss Lee Cobb and Lee knows how to pull all the strings in town. It also doesn't help that newspaper editor Renzo Palmer has it in for Saxon as he hates the use of police brutality, so his newspaper is always critical of Saxon and his methods.
In fact, the newspaper has just published a story about how Saxon put the beatdown on a young kid when a botched robbery takes place, resulting in the gunning down of a police officer. The three robbers get away, with the killer in particular carjacking someone to get away. Bad move, as the car owner is Lee Cobb's brother, and the car contains a briefcase containing evidence that could put a lot of mobsters away for a long time! Now the killer, who is just a young guy who panicked, has the police, the mob, and the gutter press trying to track him down.
What this film doesn't have is a great deal of action sequences, so if you watch the botched robbery and subsequent car chase and think 'nice' please be aware that not much else happens in that respect. Mostly you have either our guy the killer and his girlfriend talking, or John Saxon and his cops arguing with the Renzo Palmer and his journalists, or Lee Cobb acting blind and putting down his brother for most of the film. There are one or two gunfights here and there, but this is one of them acting films with people acting and not a lot of stuff being blown up. That said, Saxon and Palmer are very watchable as both believe they are doing their best to protect the public, even though they detest each other's methods.
This isn't a bad film at all, but it might be best not too have this too high up on the list of priority films. This is the first Italian film I've watched set in Bari mind you. It looks nice.
