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Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This film starts with Palermo's Police Captain, Martin Balsam, arranging the release of a known criminal from an insane asylum and calmly watches on as the man purchases a machine gun, dresses up as a cop, and heads off to the office of a local crime boss/building merchant, resulting in a bloodbath with four dead bodies. The mafia boss however seemed to have got wind of this and wasn't around for the gunfight.Franco Nero then turns up as a new district attorney who is out to play by the rules and get to the bottom of what happened - Who alerted the mafia boss that the guy was out of the loony bin? Who arranged for the guy to be released in the first place? Franco the D.A doesn't trust Balsam the cop, and various interviews with the mafia boss and others suggests that Franco is on the mafia payroll or Balsam was paid to release the prisoner to kill the mafia boss by rival mafia gangs.The two form a very uneasy alliance where Balsam suggest that most of the municipal staff of Palermo are on the mafia payroll and explains his reason for using unorthodox methods is because the mafia boss and himself grew up in a village years ago and the mafia boss shot a guy protesting about the terrible wages the mafia were paying quarry workers (played by Giancarlo Prete in a very good cameo). Nero retorts by saying he knows Balsam withdrew two million lira from an account at the same time, but will he believe that he used that to find Prete's mafia murdered body? Although this film is long and low on action, it's easy to get drawn in by the acting of the two leads. It's rarer still to see Franco Nero get acted off the screen, but that's what happens here. You might know Martin Balsam as the cop from Psycho or Alan Arkin's superior officer in Catch 22, but here we get the full spectrum of acting. He's hard skinned and efficient as a cop, but prone to showing mercy to folk who have acted stupidly, and is kind to his colleagues, even those on the mafia payroll. Wherever he goes in this film he's pushed to the absolute limit, so the bitter sweet smile on his face as a full room of mafia staff are laughing at him is priceless. And he one-ups that scene later on. Beautiful.Only negatives are Franco Nero doesn't dub his own voice (even though he speaks fluent English) and Popflix present this in full screen, but I'll say what I always say - best to see the film in any form rather than not at all!

A man in a police uniform kills four people at a construction site. The construction boss gets away... and both are wanted by the police, as the construction guy is known to be a killer who buries bodies inside the cement walls of his work. How do the police captain and district attorney play into this? The film was written and directed by Damiano Damiani, who would go on to make "Amityville 2". It hardly captures his full directing talents. But it is what it is: a police exploitation film.Of course, as far as exploitation films go, this one is pretty tame. No torture to animals, no assaulted women (almost no women at all). This is actually no more subversive than "Dirty Harry" or other police thrillers.There is some strange recurring theme about homosexuality in this film. A district attorney is accused of being gay and corrupting minors (it is implied he touches boys). There are two guys dressed very flamboyantly chased down by state police. I am not sure what Italy's take on homosexuality was, but it plays an interesting part in this film that would not be able to work if redone today.This movie is actually pretty good, and one of the better films available in the Grindhouse Experience box set. I would recommend it, and hope that some day it gets a decent cleanup job. Its only real failing is that it ends rather abruptly.

As was the case with L'ISTRUTTORIA E' CHIUSA: DIMENTICHI (1971), this too proved different to what I had been anticipating - as Martin Balsam is the nominal police-officer hero, while lead Franco Nero is merely an investigating magistrate! When Balsam is bumped off, the film follows Nero's actions but ends on an ambiguous open-ended note. However, Balsam is excellent as the unorthodox and determined Commissioner; Nero, on the other hand, occasionally overacts as the flustered State representative. Marilu' Tolo has a small but pivotal role, and her death sequence is particularly mean.Despite the poliziottesco ambiance, it's far less action-oriented than usual but all the more classy and compelling for this reason; still, when action is required by the narrative, the film rises to the occasion. The complex plot (involving Balsam's backstory told in intermittent flashbacks) takes some effort to follow, but the rewards are reaped eventually. As usual for this sort of film, Riz Ortolani's score is a notable asset. By the way, not only is the surname of Nero's superior, a judge, Malta but other surnames here - such as Bonavia (Balsam's character) and Rizzo - are also typically Maltese!

Boom! Awesome, flawless movie. Doesn't get much better than this movie. Balsam's performance is so divine that it gives me goosebumps to this date. Highly recommended if you can find it. The pace is perfect...not too slow, not too fast. It unfolds wonderfully.