The poliziotteschi genre was well known for its extreme violence and cynicism, so its quite interesting to encounter the odd entry which goes against this format. This Stelvio Massi effort is a case in point. Its much lighter in tone than usual and is more squarely about car action than anything else. To that end, this is an example of a poliziotteschi-carsploitation hybrid, which derives more inspiration from the likes of Gone in 60 Seconds and Vanishing Point, than it does Dirty Harry or The French Connection. The story does incorporate that old staple where a cop infiltrates a gang of criminals on the eve of a big job. But despite this routine basic idea, the focus in this one is squarely on car chases galore. There is much brilliant stunt work here and some insanely dangerous looking crashes caught on film; there's cars jumping over a fifty metre ravine; there's a mad moment where a stunt man is battered by a car and thrown sideways like a rag doll; there is a sequence which is both incredible and appalling, where a couple of cars fire down Rome's famous Spanish Steps, clearly causing some damage to this picturesque landmark! Only in Italy in the 70's!
As I said earlier, the tone is decidedly less aggressive in this one than normal. We even have a chief villain who doesn't like members of his gang bad mouthing his police opponent! We have genre regular Maurizio Merli sans 'tache, in a role where he is young hotshot and not a fascistic police detective. There's even mutual respect between the two protagonists, leading to a final duel - it boils down to honour and chivalry - hardly a theme seen too often in other entries in this genre, which usually involves violent men wearing balaclavas driving around in small cars while brutal police officers pursue them in other small cars. On the whole, this made for a nice change of pace for me with regards to this genre. It may ultimately be defined by its car action but when the car action is this good, then that's a pretty decent thing to be defined by.
