Le témoin à abattre

if you have never seen an Italian crime movie, this is a great place to start. unlike many other films of this type, it actually works on an emotional level as well as being very entertaining, simular to the films of Scorsese. it's a very violent film, but none of the violence is gratuitous. lots of stylish slow motion shootings, car explosions, and people run over by various moter vehicles, and the excellent musical score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis captures the emotion of these scenes perfectly. the cast is also very good, especialy Italian Star Franco Nero. highly recommended.

One of Castellari's finest works. The acting is superb. Excellent usage of lighting and settings. Unpredictable turn of events and good images. There is almost nothing wrong with this film for people who are into crime dramas.

A criminal fiction with suspense , intrigue , frantic action , turns , a lot of twisted incidents , at the same time charged with tension and high level staging which the viewer could really enjoy . Stars an Italian police inspector called Belli (Franco Nero) , he is a man of action who'll stop at nothing to get his purports and at whatever cost , as he takes on a powerful European drug ring resulting in fateful consequences , at the same time he gets advices from a former criminal mastermind , Cafiero (Fernando Rey) . Along the way , Belli is reproved by his superior Commissioner Aldo Scavino (James Whitmore) who has compiled a dossier on mafia connections , and both of them battle hardly with organized crime.

Formula thriller with plenty of action , crisply edition , tension , intrigue , suspenseful , skin bared and lots of violence in exploitation style with reminiscent to "The French Connection" , "Dirty Harry" and ¨Charles Bronson¨films . A cop movie set in the Seventies , being realized in Italian style , and made by the prolific and cult director Enzo G Castellari . Here he delivers frenetic action , thriller and violence enough along the nail-biting flick . There is a good stuntwork with car races , biker leaping , spectacular car crashes and grisly killings , many of them shot in slow-moving . Fine entry in Poliziesco sub-genre with noisy action , thrills , shootouts , betrayals , car chases , explosions and large doses of violence . It belongs to Italian Poliziesco sub-genre , essentially developed in the Seventies and including ordinary trappings such as lasting car pursuits sequences , virulent blowing up and a lot of murders executed in cold blood . The film is interesting enough , though it has some flaws , gaps and failures . This film results to be one of the best among the whole saga of Poliziottesco that had its splendor in the Seventies and early Eighties . Main and support cast are pretty good , as Franco Nero is terrific as the tough police inspector who comes closer to the top of the underworld organization by using expeditive means against delinquents , then his odds of survival decrease . Being a French/Spanish coproduction , here appears several familiar faces at the time , as the Italian secondaries as Delia Boccardo , Massimo Vanni , Duilio Del Prete , Bruno Corazzari , Silvano Tranquilli , Benito Pacifico , Nello Pazzafini and Spanish players as Daniel Martin , Victor Israel and the great Fernando Rey of French Connection and Luis Buñuel movies , here playing a former crime boss , who spends most of his time in his rose garden . And the little girl playing hopscotch results to be Natasha Richardson , daughter of Vanessa Redgrave who has been married to Franco Nero for many years .

It contains atmospheric cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa who photographed the terror classic Horror Express . As well as thrilling and moving musical score by Guido De Angelis and Maurizio De Angelis. The motion picture was well written by ordinary Tito Carpi , Maurizio Amati , Leonardo Martín and professionally directed by Enzo G Castellari in his peculiar style. Enzo is considered to be one of the best Italian artisans, who has made a nice career, shooting all kinds such as Wartime : Counterfeit Commandos , Eagles over London. Adventures : Scaramouche, Shark hunter, Tuareg , Shark 3 . Sci-fi : Bronx warriors, Escape Bronx, Warriors of wasteland. Thrillers : Light blast, Il grand racket ,The day of Cobra, La via della droga , Forajidos 77. Terror : Diabla. Westerns : Keoma, Tedeum, 7 Winchester for a massacre, Matalos y vuelve, Johnny Hamlet, Any gun can play . Rating 6.5/10. Decent and acceptable Poliziesco that will appeal to Italian exploitation fans.

This was the first break-through success of a Poliziotti Italian crime movie and spawned several dozen imitations. Possibly the best film ever made, High Crime delivers the goods like few other movies, blending some experimental filming and editing techniques in with some good performances, solid action sequences, great music, and some pretty stunning photography by Alejandro Ulloa. Unlike a lot of other crime flicks made around the same period, this film isn't sympathetic at all to the villains. They are cold and heartless thugs who's so anything to keep themselves out of jail where they rightfully belong. This film is completely fascist and right-wing in its undertones, yet maintains an engaging level of emotional impact throughout. The scene where Franco Nero discovers his daughter dead made me almost want to cry... and Castellari expertly handles the flashbacks and knows just when to use slow motion in all the right spots.

This wasn't the film which set the trend in Italian crime films (see Violent Professionals) but it was an excellent film which caused their widespread (yet short-lived) popularity. Certain elements (like the getting-in-car-gun-down) were endlessly repeated in the genre by Castellari himself as well as his father Marino Girolami, who totally ripped off the ending of this film in ROMA VIOLENTA, a much more typical film in the genre with Maurizio Merli, who although is not as good an actor as Franco Nero, is much more intense as the leading man in these sorts of films.

High Crime gets off to such a great start, with a really well-executed car chase. That sustains it for a while, and I was pretty forgiving early on of how similar it felt to The French Connection. If you want to steal from something, you may as well steal from something great. And Franco Nero, to his credit, is compelling for different reasons than Gene Hackman, and he ends up being pretty good here.

But I think High Crime runs out of steam, at a point. It's blunt at first in a good way, but then that bluntness gives way to some more convoluted stuff, and I ended up being a bit bummed out about that. There are still some good scenes here, especially early on, but it's not a great film in the end, by any means.