Un poliziotto scomodo

I haven't seen very many movies in the poliziottesco genre, but "Un poliziotto scomodo" ("Convoy Busters" in English) manages to be entertaining enough. As in a number of movies, the main character - a cop - tries to do everything the right way, but ends up on everyone's bad side, meaning that he has to go to extreme measures. It obviously looks more questionable in the era of awareness of cops randomly shooting people. If you just take the movie at face value without interpreting it as any sort of advice, then it's a pretty enjoyable romp. We get some fine shots of the Italian countryside. No masterpiece but pretty fun.

It's a film of two halves as Maurizio Merli starts out as a no-nonsense cop with an itchy trigger finger and ends up as a bored cop with an itchy arse in this slightly different cop film from Stelvio Massi.

Someone has killed a teenage girl and dumped her in the Tiber. The first suspect, her boyfriend, has ended up being roasted in a car and all evidence points to the son of a local import company owner.

Maurizio beats up half of Rome and discovers it's the boy's father who is the real crook, smuggling diamonds into the country. He's also well connected and while Maurizio has a fine time gunning down henchman, he has a lot of trouble getting to the boss due to being bogged down with red tape.

Pissed off, beaten down, and hacked off, Maurizio only goes and shoots a cop by accident. We'll never know if he told anyeone about it or just left the guy lying in the street because the next thing you know Maurizio is taking up a post on a coastal town. Don't be so down-hearted Mo, here comes Olga Karlatos!

Maurizio starts himself a little romance, but one day at the docks he realises that a certain fish that the trawlers brought in is not indigenous to the Adriatic Sea, and this sets off another action packed escapade. I'm not kidding - that's how good a detective Maurizio is!

Ending one story in the middle of the film and switching to an entirely different place keeps the film interesting, even though the film is a bit front heavy on the action front. You won't hear me complaining about Maurizio gunning people down from a helicopter, mostly because I don't talk about these things out loud, but also because no one ever listens to me, ever.

Still, this is a strong film even for those people who are a bit picky about these things, and it's a wonderful tale about a man who falls out of love with his gun, only to learn to love it again - by using it to kill bad guys.

This is one of Stelvio Massi's best movies ever. A lot of first class stunts, chases and shootings that make this movie better than the average of Italian 'poliziotteschi' movies. But the whole plot is about a man who feels uncomfortable with himself both as a cop and as a man. The title in Italian is "Un poliziotto scomodo", literally "An uncomfortable cop". It has been freely translated as "Convoy Buster" even though there's no convoy in the whole movie. The original title has a double meaning. It means both "A bothering cop" and "A discomforted cop". It's a reference to the two halves into which the movie can be subdivided.

In the first half Inspector Olmi is in Rome, investigating on a double murder related to a rich and politically influential diamond smuggler. As Inspector Olmi finds out that the smuggler has bribed the judge who had to sue him, he realizes that it's depressing to be such a goop cop if you ain't backed by the system. Instead of promoting him, in fact, the local chief of police degrades him from homicide division to patrol. Inspector Olmi understands he is bothering the "big fishes", so he decides to give up and move to a quiet seaside small town, where he locks down is gun and tries to be an anonymous non-violent officer. He meets a beautiful woman who eventually becomes his girlfriend. But organized crime won't leave him alone as he finds out a gang of gun dealers that operates in that area. He resumes his Clint Eastwood's attitude and manages to annihilate the criminals, but in the final scene we see him drop down his gun and badge, desperate at his own tragic fate: he is not fit for life, since he is not appreciated as the good cop he is and there's nowhere he can hide from violence and blood-thirsty organized crime...

One of those excellent movies when there was no such thing as a happy ending...

While this film isn't quite as dreary as FEARLESS FUZZ (which must have spent almost its entire budget coaxing Joan Collins to guest star), CONVOY BUSTERS still feels too sloppy to really compete with the other, much better work Maurizio Merli did for Umberto Lenzi and Marino Girolami. Stelvio Massi's films always felt like cut-rate Umberto Lenzi, though with a much higher emphasis on creative camera angles and slow motion, so with a little Antonio Margheriti and Enzo Castellari mixed in. However his films certainly suffered from lack of money, and this film is no exception.

Maurizio Merli starts the movie on the tail of a ruthless killer and diamond smuggler who frustratingly slips out of his grasp. Oddly enough, the movie completely switches gears and spends its second half in a sleepy seaside community when Merli gets transferred to get away from it all. This sort of thing would never be green-lit today as the nervous studio execs would demand that the villain find his comeuppance or at least have something tie in from the first half later on. No such luck.

The strangeness of this film is really what sets it the most apart from Merli's other more routine late-70's police outings. There's a couple great scenes in there like when Merli (albeit unrealistically) hunts down several crooks with a helicopter armed only with a revolver with what must be "criminal-seeking bullets". Things get muddled when he meets a girl (the stunning Olga Karlatos) and it turns into an awkward romance as everyone (you, me, and both of them) can tell he's way more into his work than her.

Another memorable goofy scene highlights some miscast 30-somethings as teenagers terrorizing a stadium and shooting at the whimpering owner who looks like either a bloated Sean Penn or a late-career Zalman King. Merli shows up and administers more of his productive signature beatings, but to the teens and not the owner.

The main gang at the end really lacks much of a sense of menace, even when they take hostages. This film really could have used better actors as henchmen but unfortunately plays its cards too soon as Nello Pazzafini and Riccardo Petrazzi only get one short scene as a pair of robbers shacked up with a sleepy hippy chick who gets delightfully shot through the wrist. More beatings ensue.

Definitely a hit-and-miss affair. Set your expectations low and you'll have a lot more fun than THE REBEL or FEARLESS FUZZ. The most memorable aspect of the film is the scene where Maurizio Merli fatally shoots some innocent bystander and promptly just forgets about the whole thing.

Convoy Busters may not be the best Polizi movie ever to come out of Italy, but it's certainly an above average crime romp with a great cast and more action packed stunt sequences than you can shake a stick at! The film is set up a little differently to most of the Polizi movies that I've seen, as it's a movie of two halves and a lot of it takes place in settings unlike the thick urban atmosphere I've come to associate with this sort of movie; namely, a quiet seaside town and the rural countryside. Most of these films take influence from Dirty Harry, and Convoy Buster is no different as Maurizio Merli's maverick copper has a definite Clint Eastwood vibe about him; but the fact that it's a little different gives Convoy Busters a lot of credibility in my opinion. The story starts when the dead body of a young girl is found with her throat cut. Commissioner Olmi takes the case, but when his violent methods leave an innocent man dead; he gets transferred to a quiet coastal town. However, the fact that it's quiet doesn't mean there isn't any organised crime...

This is the first Polizi I've seen from director Stelvio Massi, and while it doesn't rival the likes of Umberto Lenzi and Enzo G. Castellari, I'm definitely interested in checking out more from him. Massi's handling is generally very good, and while the plot does have a few problems; certain sequences - the one in which the inspector shoots a few crooks from a helicopter in particular - are real standouts. There's plenty of action to keep the audience entertained throughout and it comes through in a steady stream. The stunts range from a very well done bar room brawl to a great sequence that sees Merli smash through a school window. The leading man puts in an excellent performance. He can look a little silly at times, but generally he fits the role very well and this was more than enough to keep this Eurocrime fan happy. It has to be said that Convoy Busters doesn't work from the most imaginative of scripts, but this isn't too important as Massi is more than equal to the task of making sure that what he has to work with is always entertaining as a film like this should be. Overall, Convoy Busters is well worth seeing and I certainly recommend it.