Milano trema: la polizia vuole giustizia

MILANO TREMA boasts some nice Milan location work and some very well-handled action sequences by Sergio Martino. The proceedings however get a little bogged down with a few too many subplots, unlikable characters, and lots and lots of talking about politics. Ernesto Gastaldi was one of the best of Italy's genre movie screenwriters, always able to inject some realism and dimensionality even into the small bit players. There's even some successful intentional humor, particularly during Luc Merenda's successful infiltration of a bank heist racket even though he's (a former?) chief of police.

The car chases in this film really take the cake though as some of the best of the genre, and quite early in the cycle too. Footage from the chases popped up in numerous other crime films, particularly Umberto Lenzi's. Also, a lot of the same henchmen would pop up in film to film from here on out. While at first I was irked that the two bumbling goons (Claudio Ruffini and Sergio Smacchi) who get tasked with tailing Merenda around just disappear without any resolution, I was delighted to see teamed again (possibly as the same characters?) in such films as THE CYNIC THE RAT AND THE FIST.

Granted, the success of this film, along with HIGH CRIME led to an explosion of Italian crime movies over the rest of the decade. The two films share much in common including featuring a fisticuffs- loving inspector using extreme methods to rid his city of crime to the tune of Guido and Maurizio De Angelis music. Oh yes, and Silvano Tranquilli appears in both, though his character here much less intimidating.