L'exécuteur

I was led to believe from reviews that this was some sort of buddy comedy with Roger Moore and Stacey Keach and although the film does have its lighter moments (mainly down to Keach) it is still a violent Eurocrime film that doesn't skimp on the car chases, punch-ups, or smoking.

You see Moore is a lawyer for his Uncle, who is a mobster trying to go straight. The Uncle has recently imported a huge wooden cross from a chapel in Sicily as a gift to his estranged priest friend Ettor Manni, but when three Sicilians turn up, kidnap the delivery men, then steal a shipment of heroin concealed in the cross, all hell breaks loose. Only we the audience are clued in that there's a black-gloved killer (possibly on loan from a giallo) who kills the delivery men with a silencer. Somebody doesn't want witnesses!

Moore seems to be some sort of mediator for all the mob bosses too, so he's given the task of recovering the heroin, tracking down the three gangsters, and finding out who set up his Uncle. To do that he enlists Stacey "You Never Forget the Taste of Human Flesh!" Keach, a race car driver, and you better believe that's coming in handy later in the film. Moore travels to Sicily while Keach hits the streets looking for the heroin, where he discovers that it's not being sold - so where is it?

I suppose you could complain that the film is all over the place tone-wise, with the drug dealing granny and Keach merrily destroying a car by driving it around San Francisco on one side and the gangland executions on the other side, but I liked it. You've got a bit of a mystery going on and James Bond fighting Romano Puppo, who doesn't want that?

We also get a car chase thrown in where two trucks get involved and I couldn't tell if they belonged to the bad guys or Roger Moore just killed them because they got in his way. All the Eurocrime elements are here, so I guess whether you enjoy or not depends on how you get on with Roger Moore and Stacey Keach.

Aside from the novelty of seeing Roger Moore (as a half-Sicilian!) and Stacy Keach, there really isn't much of interest here. It's mostly people talking - all dubbed. Even Moore and Keach are dubbed! (Using their own voices, which leads to a weird effect) There are a few not-bad chase sequences, but there's a sloppiness to them, as there is to the entire production; this movie really screams, "Italians made this." Bobbing cameras, slightly blurred photography, uses of a zoom lens is more than enough evidence for that. Only for people into Italian cinema of this genre.

Disjointed gangster film that specializes in pointless "destruction of property" scenes. Roger Moore is badly miscast; he clearly looks uncomfortable to be in an Italian crime movie, and he shows none of his usual flair. Don't go out of your way to see this one. (*1/2)

This film is not dissimilar to many cop-buddy films, except that the two central characters trying to track down the contraband are working for the mob. And, to-be-fair, it is far better than a hell of lot of cop-buddy films I have seen. It is let down in places though, not least the awful flashback scenes which are far too sappy.

In my opinion, the ratings are somewhat unfair, possibly because they compare the film with current productions. The film is from 1976 and therefore should be measured at the standards of that time and here, I find, it still exceeds the average. The two main actors, Roger Moore and, more specifically, Stacey Keach, are the main reason for this. Some complain about the English dubbing. About this I can say nothing, but I can imagine that a bad dubbing can mess something, or all here. Well, the German Dubbing is very good, both protagonists have the well- known sync voices, Roger Moore, for example, from his James Bond films. Both act as buddies and complement each other excellently, just Keach's role brings loose the film excellently and humorously. The music is better than the beats from other Italian films of the 70s. Also the production and the existing budget is higher. I often read 'low budget film' but as mentioned before, compare it to the standard Italian classic flick and not with an James Bond Production. The two auto- action scenes are very well implemented, also the filming sites was well-considered. Surely we have here no top film belonging to the IMDb Top 250, but in my opinion synonymous not the superfluous film, which is only waste of time. It is a solid, versatile action tiller who can be given a chance. In German its called Abrechnung in San Francisco, meaning Last billing in SF, which suits much better than Street People. A weak 7, but a 7.