SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Leofwine_draca This classic entry in the Italian crime thriller (or "polizia") genre is highlighted by the unforgettable pairing of director Umberto Lenzi and star Maurizio Merli, who combine to make this one of the very best Italo crime films you'll see. This is a perfectly-made movie, well-shot at all times and incredibly fast paced. In the first twenty minutes you'll see enough action to make three low budget made-for-TV thrillers and the pacing doesn't let up until the very end. Shoot-outs, hold-ups, fist-fights and car chases, they're all here and done in splendid style by a director who was at the very peak of his career before his star began to wane in the '80s. Anyone put off by plot complexities can relax because this, like many other Lenzi/Merli collaborations, is a relatively plot less movie that just features lots of random crimes, plot-threads and sub-plots linked together by Merli's ever angry Inspector Tanzi.Whilst the name of Maurizio Merli's character may change with each film he's in, you can rest easy knowing he'll play the same angry, on-the-edge, anti-criminal policeman each time whose hard-edged tactics cause him to inevitably fall out with his superiors. Merli is at his best here, dubbed with a typically hardman voice and perfectly believable as the dedicated, no-nonsense lawman, a character you can really cheer for. Once again Lenzi assembles a cast of familiar Italian faces like Stefano Patrizi, Luciano Catenacci and Luciano Pigozzi to play the various scum who are terrorising the streets of Rome. Plus there's Ivan Rassimov (THE RED BERETS) playing a really evil creep who keeps his pretty, unfortunate girlfriend hooked on heroin and Arthur Kennedy (KILLER COP) reprising his "angry man" routine as Merli's increasingly frustrated chief. Hats off to Giampiero Albertini as a sympathetic fellow cop, Caputo, and in particular Tomas Milian (FREE HAND FOR A TOUGH COP) who excels as the slimy villain, an unbelievable hunchback character who runs amok shooting innocent civilians in his bid for escape! This un-politically correct film definitely isn't for all tastes, especially with a near-the-knuckle rape sequence which pushes the boundaries of bad taste and is deeply unpleasant stuff to watch. Thankfully the rest of the violence is well-deserved and thus enjoyable, as we watch Merli beat up endless bad guys, smashing heads on pool tables, through pinball machines and roughing up countless bad guys. The action sequences are highlighted by a superb catchy and jazzy score (which kept me humming for days) and noisy engine revving and gunfire. The car chases are excitingly portrayed, especially a great scene involving an ambulance speeding through the city. Other moments to watch out for include the bank hold-up where the robbers go wild with machine guns and the hilarious, unforgettable sight of Milian's hunchback running amok in a crowd of pedestrians, gunning them down with his machine-gun! Dialogue is as snappy and rich as ever and my only minor complaint is with the ending, which is slightly abrupt but not as jarring as Lenzi's other polizia movies. I can't sing this movie's praises highly enough and recommend all Euro fans to track it down now, as it really is priceless stuff.One word of advice : ignore the hacked-up, edited US release of this movie and instead track down the harder to find European releases (I know of a Dutch release for instance). The result is worth it; not only will the picture be of a better quality, but you can watch the film as it was meant to be before an American tycoon got his grubby paws on it.

lazarillo This is a dumb, but thoroughly enjoyable Italian police thriller from journey-man Italian director Umberto Lenzi. Maurizio Merli is not my favorite actor (he was kind of a cut-rate Franco Nero), but he's pretty entertaining here as an over-the-top vigilante cop who slaps around suspects, engages in dangerous high-speed chases, and has shoot-outs in busy downtown Rome. When five young punks rape a girl, he goes into their hangout BY HIMSELF and beats up ALL of them up before chasing down and eventually shooting one of them to death. Even when his superior (Arthur Kennedy) transfers him to the licenses unit, he won't stay out of the action. In one of the funnier scenes, he beats information out of a bartender, breaks into a suspect's apartment without a warrant, and chases him around the Rome rooftops (in a great cinematic scene), but after the whole thing goes awry, he blames his superiors for making him go "by the book" (if that's true I'd hate to see "the book").This movie has a great supporting cast. Besides Arthur Kennedy (who was in movies like "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" and "Rico, the Mean Machine"), the movie features Ivan Rassimov, perhaps somewhat wasted as a low-level thug who gives his girlfriend an overdose of heroin simply because she's a "pain in the ass". The best of all though, is the great Tomas Milian as a psychotic hunchback, who starts out as a sympatheic figure, but turns out to be a frightening heavy. In one scene Meri's detective slaps him around and makes him swallow a bullet, which he later he craps out and vows to shoot the detective in the face with face with it for revenge! The real weakness of this movie is the loose plotting. There's a lot of action set pieces, but the whole thing doesn't really hold together, especially whenever Milian is not on screen. The movie also could have used more women. Merli does have a pretty girlfriend (who the villains at one point threaten to put through a car compactor), but her role is pretty perfunctory.Still this is definitely a fun movie and I would recommend it.

buonanotte Sometimes I think that what really takes you into this movies is... the tune. At the beginning you see an "Alfetta" driven by a guy wearing a red and black scarf, some creepy skyscrapers in the background while the credits appear on the bottom right of the screen. You feel just surrounded by a massive soundtrack and you smile. I wonder if it used to feel the same in the seventies. I've seen only another Lenzi's movie. "Milano odia. La polizia non puo' sparare" has got a similar plot (Same subject, to be honest) but the director chose to put the criminal as the protagonist. In "Roma a mano armata" the policeman is violent and aggressive, in "Milano odia" the outlaw is a sort of victim of the system. It looks like the fight against criminality gets tougher day after day. The cinematographic relevance of these movies is their success in celebrating the action. But I found in Lenzi's a strong attention in the sociological issues related to his stories. His characters have got a good inner nature, they seem like gotten worse because bred in a hard environment. Finally, it is just amazing how a 31 years old film is still perfectly enjoyable and that is probably due to a neat and careful direction.

Michael A. Martinez Maurizio Merli and Tomas Milian star in probably the most typical, yet completely enjoyable Italian crime movie by Umberto Lenzi. With a blazing soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi and some exciting camerawork by Federico Zanni, this film is fast-paced and furious although the narrative makes relatively little sense. This reminds me of THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS, a film Dardano Sacchetti also penned, which was completely fun and enjoyable although it didn't make any sense whatsoever.The best scenes in this movie have to be the extended car chases. Milian hijacks an ambulence and kills all the people on board for no reason. When it crashes in a crowded flea market, Milian jumps out of the ambulence and just starts randomly firing his sub-machine gun into the crowd to create enough confusion to get away. Another great scene has a gang of upper-class teenagers led by the baby-faced Stefano Patrizi who get bored of nightclubbing and proceed to rape a girl and beat up her boyfriend in a vacant lot. Patrizi is wholely unsympathetic as he punches the boyfriend in the gut repeatedly and knees him in the face, then making weird gestures with a nearby piece of wood. Merli later pops by their nightclub and smashes Patrizi's face right through a pinball machine and then simultaneously beats the tar out of the six or so members of the gang!This film comes fast and furious. Good performances all around by a veteran cast (with Arthur Kennedy, Ivan Rassimov, and Luciano Pigozzi along for the ride). It's not the most coherent of Lenzi's works, but it's definitely a genre classic. Where's the DVD?