Société anonyme anti-crime

The police say thank you: Italian crime classic with Mario Adorf and Jürgen Drews

With this film by Stefano "Steno" Vanzina (production: Roberto Infascelli) the great wave of Italian Poliziotteschi films of the 1970s really began. In Italy it grossed ITL 1.7 billion in the box office, but the film was not quite as successful in cinemas in West Germany.

Commissario Bertone (Enrico Maria Salerno) is a very sophisticated police officer who is increasingly despairing of politics and what he believes is a far too lax justice system. He has various arguments, especially with public prosecutor Ricciuti (Mario Adorf). The crime rate in Rome is rising and rising. The misery is made clear to the distinctive journalist Sandra (Mariangela Melato) in an almost sociological-scientific way. The head crook Bettarini (Franco Fabrizi) and the young Michele Settecamini (Jürgen Drews), who brutally holds a young woman (Laura Belli) hostage in order to cover up a robbery, act as a symbol of the fact that the criminals are increasingly capable of taking more risks takes. But then something unexpected happens! Apparently there is a syndicate on the streets of Rome whose mission is to murder criminals and other undesirable people who have been spared justice. Almost as a revival of the fascist past and the abolished death penalty, police officers who were fired because of excessive use of force seem to be behind it. Can that even be possible? What does the former police chief Stolfi (Cyril Cusack) know about it?

This is really tough stuff, which is presented here in an outstanding mixture of action spectacle and social psychological treatise. Exciting, direct, informative and so in tune with the times that it touched a nerve with the audience. A great moment in Italian genre cinema! Rousing, provocative, frightening!

The lead role was originally supposed to go to sex comedy star Lando Buzzanca, but luckily that fell through. Enrico Maria Salerno simply fits this role better. Pop singer Jürgen Drews probably got his small role by chance and at the request of co-producer Dieter Geissler. But he does his job really well. Respect! In 1976 he was supposed to perform with the Les Humphries Singers (Sing Sang Song) at the Eurovision Song Contest and land a huge hit in German-speaking countries with "Ein Bett im Kornfeld".

Great police film that you should definitely see as a EuroCrime fan!

This is definitely a kind of Italian MAGNUM FORCE or even STAR CHAMBER, the kind of film for which I would have more guessed a director such as Damiano Damiani or Pasquale Squieteri - though it's a bit too much action bloody packed for both of their styles. Anyway Steno was more used to Bud Spencer's comedy flicks, saturday evening cinema. Yes this is a so gloomy, downbeat story but that makes you really think about many politics matter in the Italian state of the mid and late seventies. and it is not necessarily question here of mafia of any kind. That's also a real surprise. But after all what's the difference?

I really love those Poliziotteschi pictures from Italy, it's has an incredible sense of realism, a veteran Police Commissioner Bertone played by the great Enrico Maria Salerno has been pushed by press, society and several groups against policemen violence, meanwhile many assassins, drugs dealers, crooks are free for their smart defence lawyers, also by the prosecutor (Mario Adorf) that pressure him to best treatment of those human beings , so quickly enter the Dead Squad commanded by ex-cops and judges, a closed club, a crime picture who dared to touch in a true sensitive point, so rarely even in this specific genre, a criticism or a farce, actually this fact had occurred on the mostly major cities around the globe and still on action, except where the law has a fully control, valuable offering by Italian Poliziottesque's era!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5

Whereas Westerns films now and again contained social commentary and sly digs at Italian life and the politics of the late sixties, and the main message of the Gialli was 'boobs and slow motion lesbian scenes with Rosalba Neri are cool', the Poliziotesschi were set mainly in the real world: that of a corrupt Italy where the laws protect the criminals, kidnapping and ransoming are endemic, politicians and the police are regularly bribed, students and unions are suppressed and the public are at the end of their tether.

Although some of these films are Dirty Harry rip-offs, others (like Enzo Castellari's Street Law) show the public having to take the law into their own hands, or mobsters themselves trying to escape the life of crime (like Duccio Tessari's Tony Arzenta). These films were successful in the mid-seventies until being frowned upon as right-wing (usually the films involving rogue cops blowing away everybody) and condemned by Italian directors themselves, like Michele Soavi, for instance. Like the gialli, however, they never really died out totally. In fact, they seem to have a bit or resurgence in TV series form lately.

Execution Squad is a film I wasn't familiar with but added to my never ending list of Italian films to watch anyway. I was quite surprised to find it a fully formed, politically charged thriller with an amazing performance from Enrico Maria Salerno. Nice! The ever-weary looking Salerno plays inspector Bertone, head of homicide in Rome, and the first time we see him he's reluctantly released a smug mobster for the umpteenth time. Making matters worse is a double murder by two young guy that leads to the kidnapping of a young lady.

Growing pressure from the public and the press leads Bertone to give a demonstration to a bunch of journalists as to how the police have their hands tied, including Merlin's Law, which explains why whenever you see a hooker or a rent boy in an Italian movie, they are standing out on the streets! Bertone's woes increase as he's falsely accused of assaulting the smug mobster, and even his retired predecessor cannot reassure him that everything's going to be alright.

Things take a turn into darker territory when the plot changes to focus on a sinister bunch of vigilantes who appear halfway through the film and start executing some of the criminals mentioned above. Bertone's priorities change and it seems he's the only one out to give the criminal are fair chance at a trial, no matter how heinous their actions are. Maybe the straight laced Attorney (Mario Adorf in a much more subdued role than Milano Calibro 9) isn't so much of an obstacle after all, but who knows how deep the corruption runs, or how much people support these vigilantes…

I was really impressed by Enrico Salerno's turn as the crippled gunslinger in Bandidos, and in this film he brings that same kind of resigned melancholy to a contemporary role. He seems to know how things are going to end up, but does it anyway as he believes everyone should face the law. His character is a policeman who is wiser than everyone else, but that wisdom comes with the knowledge that wisdom is futile in the face of mob mentality.

Even with all the politics, Steno doesn't skimp on the action. Plenty of car chases, gunfights and such like to keep you going. Poliziotesschi films somehow manage to raise the bar in the violence stakes too, and this one is no different. I winced at the scene where one character is pushed under a speeding police car.

There are better Poliziotesschi out there, but I wouldn't miss this one either.

"La Polizia Ringrazia" is, at first sight, a prototype of an Italian euro-crime/poliziotesschi thriller like there were dozens during the first half of the 1970s. They practically always featured the same recurring themes, like unorthodox coppers, the ever-failing Italian justice system, vigilante squads violently cleansing the streets, corrupt politicians and police superiors, media circuses and liberal newspapers influencing the public opinion. You'd think the audience eventually grew tired of these familiar and continuously recycled themes, but no. Quite the contrary, every Poliziotesschi is unique and, for avid genre fanatics like me, it's almost becoming an obsession to track them all down. "La Polizia Ringrazia" is a downright stellar example of the euro-crime's peak period, complete with a compelling & intelligent script, an intensely raw atmosphere of realism, a few shocking bits of violence, a great soundtrack (Stelvio Cipriani, of course) and brilliantly devoted performances by some of the finest contemporary stars (notably Enrico Maria Salerno, Mario Adorf, Cyril Cusack, ...)

Salerno is truly amazing as the clearly tormented Commissioner Bertone, caught between the frustration of seeing criminals getting released without a proper punishment and the accusations of the press about the police being too violent when making their arrests. Whilst on the case of finding two bank robbers who killed two people during their escape, Salerno is suddenly confronted with another major challenge. A secret group, existing of former policemen and even judges, are hunting down acquitted or fugitive criminals and brutally execute them in true mafia-style. Moral dilemmas aside, Commissioner Bertone must find now the bank robbers before the so-call "clean up squad" does. The material may be familiar, but writer/director Stefano Vanzina (better known as Steno) keeps the levels of suspense, plausibility and originality quite high and steady. I was particularly surprised by this, because Steno is mainly known for his light-headed comedies starring Bud Spencer!

The last thing you can say about "La Polizia Ringrazia" is that it is light-headed! There are a couple of sequences that initially seem very bizarre, but they actually work quite effectively. For example, Commissioner Bertone invites a whole bunch of journalists on a nightly tour bus drive through the city, just to demonstrate how disastrous the crime plague is. The role of Mario Adorf, as the unreliable district attorney, is also quite unusual for this type of film, but the role (and, of course, Adorf's performance) add a great deal of value to an already intelligent film. "La Polizia Ringrazia" is far from being the most explicitly violent Poliziotesschi, but several scenes are nevertheless immensely brutal and gritty. The clean-up squad's cold-blooded executions, for instance, and especially the horrendous fate of a poor woman who's taken hostage and eventually thrown off a driving vehicle. It's the second time in a short period that I've seen such a similarly shocking death, the other movie being "La Legge Violenta della Squadra Anticrimine", starring John Saxon and J. Lee Cob. And no, it's not recycled footage, as I know the Italians were infamous for that.