Squadra volante

In the wonderful world of Italian Poliziotteschi (a cult/exploitation sub-genre) movies from the 1970s, Stelvio Massi was a director/cinematographer whose name and reputation were rather insignificant compared to some of his more talented and infamous colleagues, most notably Umberto Lenzi or Enzo G. Castellari or Fernando Di Leo, but he did deliver a handful of undemanding & fun films. This "Emergency Squad" is arguably his best work; a rudimentary and derivative but nevertheless blood-soaked (literally) story about an unorthodox copper on a personal quest for raw vengeance against the bastard criminals that killed his wife during their escape from a bank robbery. During his prolific in these euro- crime movies, cult actor Tomas Milian alternately played borderline coppers and psychotic criminals, and this time he depicts the cop. Inspector Ravelli from Interpol is called to the holdup scene where a quintet of criminals inventively pretended to be a film crew and gunned down an unfortunate policeman. Ravelli immediately spots that the bullet shelves on the ground come from the same weapon that killed his wife five years earlier and begins his obsessive hunt. Meanwhile, there's severe distrust and hostility between the crooks. Particularly their leader Marsigliese clearly doesn't intend to share the loot and prefers to get away with his mistress Martha. "Emergency Squad" is memorable to me for three main reasons: the performances of the two lead actors, the extremely violent nature of the gunfights and the fact that approximately 1/3 of the DVD that I own is spoken in its original Italian language without English dubbing subtitles. The latter point is rather bizarre, since the DVD is an official release (yellow box with a drawn picture of Tomas Milian's character in front of a bullseye) and actually quite expensive! Milian's opponent in the film is none other than Gastone Mochin (immortal thanks to the brilliant "Milano Calibro 9) and he portrays a marvelously complex and atypical gangster. Marsigliese is a ruthless thug, but also struggling with his health due to chain- smoking. Last but not least, "Emergency Squad" contains numerous of vile gunfights and executions for which I honestly wonder whether the human blood spillage is anatomically correct or not… Whenever someone is shot, admittedly always with heavy artillery and at extremely close range, his/her clothes are immediately drenched in blood. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen bigger bullet wounds or more massive bloodshed in any other movie in my life. Of course I never witnessed an execution in real life, but I do suspect that director Stelvio Massi exaggerated a tad bit with the blood spillage in order to make his film more sensational and more appealing to fans of the Poliziotteschi genre … And it worked, too!

Nice outing with Tomas Milian as a two-fisted cop , being well accompanied by a good cast with special mention for Gastone Moschin . Enjoyable Italian Poliziotteschi packed with noisy action , thrills , shooutous , car pursuits and lots of violence . It deals with cop (Tomas Milian), who's usually clashing with his superior (Mario Carenuto), he's consumed with the desire to get revenge on the gangster (Gastone Moschin) who shot his wife to death during a hold-up . The crook in question is nicknamed the Marseilles who is attempting to join his gang (Raymond Lovelock, Leontini , Guerrini , Ilaria Guerrini) to commit another robbery so that he assembles funds for his own retirement along with his girlfriend (Stefania Casini) .

Formula thriller with plenty of action , crisply edition , tension , intrigue , suspenseful , and loads of violence in exploitation style with reminiscent to "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 Stelvio Massi at his best . Here he delivers frenetic action , thriller and violence enough along the nail-biting flick . There is a good stuntwork with car chases and grisly killings , many of them hardly shot . It belongs to the Italian Poliziesco theme , a cult/exploitation sub-genre , essentially developed in the Seventies and including ordinary trappings such as lasting car chases sequences , virulent fights and a lot of murders executed in cold blood . The film is interesting enough , though it has some flaws , gaps and failures . This Squadra Volante 1974 results to be one of the best among the whole saga of the cops played by Tomas Milian , adding usual seasonings about this particular role . In the end , Ravelli must deal with Marsigliese in a thrilling chase , causing a real pandemonium and including a surprising confrontation at a pier . Stars Tomas Milian dressed in Hippie style and performing on a personal quest for raw revenge against the murderers that killed his wife during their getaway from a bank robbery. Here he plays Ravelli , a tough cop similar to his classic role Nico Gerardi , but Ravelli results to be less humorous than Nico . Milan was a sympathetic actor , well known for his several Spaghetti Westerns . After the tremendous success of Sergio Leone's A Fistful of dollars (1964) starring Clint Eastwood, Milian grubbed up his own image and propelled himself to stardom in similar fashion in such classic "spaghetti westerns" as The Bounty Killer (1966) , A fistful of Dollars (1966) with Lee Van Cleef , Face to Face (1967) , Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! (1967) and ¡Corre, Cuchillo... corre ! (1968). He later turned to comedy , playing the recurrent characters of petty thief Monnezza and Serpico-like police officer Nico Giraldi a peculiar top undercover cop who often uses unofficial means to track down delinquents without avoiding his attitude of rude man, this is an attractive role who he performed in a variety of crime-comedy pictures playing in the manner of Serpico . Main and support cast are pretty good as Tomas Milian is terrific as the tough police inspector who comes closer to the top of the criminal organization by using expeditive means against delinquents , then his odds of survival decrease . Along with an attractive support cast in which stands out Gastone Moschin as a ruthles mobster , Mario Carotenuto as superior inspector Lavagni , Ray Lovelock , Enzo Andronico, Giuseppe Castellano and gorgeous Stefania Casini playing a blonde and silly bombshell .

It contains atmospheric and evocative cinematography by Sergio Rubini . As well as thrilling and moving musical score by Stelvio Cipriani . The motion picture was well written by notorious specialist Dardano Sacchetti and professionally directed by Stelvio Massi in his peculiar style . Stelvio is considered to be one of the best Italian cameramen , then he moved to directiong , making a nice career, shooting all kinds of genres , such as Thriller : Taxi Killer , Ready to Kill , Balkan Runner , Black Angel . Wartime : Hell's Heroes , War Dogs . And specially Poliziesco : Poliziotto solitudine e rabbia , Dirty Gang, Fearless Fuzz , Commissario di Ferro, Speed driver , Poliziotto va e uccidi , Hunted City , Speed Cross, among othrs . Rating : 6/10 . Decent talian Poliziotteschi/ thriller .

This is probably the best of the many, many "polizieschi" flicks director Stelvio Massi directed in the 70's. It has a nice tight plot (unlike more meandering stuff like "Convoy Busters") and it benefits from strong acting by Tomas Milan, Ray Lovelock, and (especially) Gaston Moschin. Milan plays a renegade cop after a group of criminals who murdered his wife five years earlier. While posing as "polizieschi" filmmakers(!), the gang pulls a daring daylight robbery that leaves a policeman dead. They then try to flee Italy dressed as machine-gun toting priests(!!). Moschine plays "the Marseillese" the treacherous, cigar-chomping leader of the group. Lovelock plays a political radical and intellectual who works as the gang's wheel-man. Stefania Cassini plays the rather irritating bimbo girlfriend.

Massi does a pretty good job keeping the plot together for a change. He splits the screen time between the bickering, treacherous gang and the relentless cop. This is far from Milan's best role, but he's pretty decent. Lovelock plays an interesting character who should have had more screen time. Cassini, very atypically, keeps her clothes on for some reason (although there's plenty of gratuitous nudity involving a porno club and a scene where the gang holds an entire family hostage, apparently just so they can feel up the mini-skirted teenage daughter and rip her blouse open a couple times). Cassini is a good actress, but her character is pretty annoying and really serves no function. I was very impressed though with Moschin, who I've only seen previously in the sex comedy "Erotomania". He is a far more effective presence in this genre than in comedies. (Although his final face-off with Milan is kind of disappointing).

In any event, this is worth watching, especially if you like the Italian crime thriller genre.

Interpol agent Ravelli (Tomas Milian) gets a new clue after five years of investigating a robbery where his wife got killed accidentally from a stray bullet. It leads him to a master criminal called Marseilles, who is trying to keep away from the police after his latest robbery partially failed. Revenge is in the air...

Pleasurable crime film. Milian, as usual, gives a good performance as a policeman whose only goal in life is to avenge his wife's death. Good locations, OK casting and a great sense of street credible grit not forgetting good pacing. Slightly more original script wouldn't have hurt, either.

Released on video in Finland in the eighties.

Though undeniably enjoyable, the popular poliziottesco subgenre - which proliferated in Italy throughout the 1970s - is also frustrating because one can never tell the quality of a specific title until one has watched it himself (this is mainly due to the fact that this type of film has been largely dismissed by the critics, while at the same time turned into a cult by fans): the thing is that a handful of titles definitely merit a critical re-appraisal, while many others are overrated by the aficionados. Personally, during the last few years, I've sampled films which fall in both these categories - but, thankfully, EMERGENCY SQUAD turned out to be one of the best poliziotteschi out there.

Having just watched ROME ARMED TO THE TEETH (1976), whose narrative was all over the place, it's easy to see how EMERGENCY SQUAD benefits from having a tight, compelling plot line. Besides, I tend to find star Tomas Milian more interesting when playing an anti-hero (as here or in his better Spaghetti Westerns) than an out-and-out villain. The film is clearly inspired by both DIRTY HARRY (1971) - the taciturn, iconoclastic cop hero with a dead spouse - and THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) - the desire for revenge has turned Milian's pursuit of gang boss Gastone Moschin (who, like Fernando Rey in that movie, also hails from Marseilles) into an obsession; curiously enough, the dock finale of this film anticipates the one in FRENCH CONNECTION II [1975]! Moschin (terrific as the anti-hero hood in MILANO CALIBRO 9 [1972]) is a credible villain here, also because the script has atypically made him a victim of tuberculosis.

The supporting cast is led by Stefania Casini, who has fun with her role as a ditzy gangster's moll but isn't really given a lot to do: the actress' above-the-title billing certainly suggests that her character will be more central to the main plot and that, perhaps, she'll become involved with Milian at some point - but they only get to share one scene at the very end! Also featured, among others, are Mario Carotenuto (as Milian's elderly sidekick and conscience) and Ray Lovelock (as one of Moschin's lackeys, though he exits the proceedings rather quickly in one of the film's best scenes).

Director/co-writer Massi's background as a cinematographer is evident in the film's stylish look (even if there's an over-abundance of zoom shots), and equally notable is the inventive editing technique adopted throughout (which shows a definite influence from modern American films - the overlapping of shots from successive scenes before a full transition being borrowed from EASY RIDER [1969], the juxtaposition in slo-mo of Moschin's death with that of Milian's wife at the climax from the work of Sam Peckinpah). Regular genre composer Stelvio Cipriani contributes an excellent and eclectic score, providing several variations on the catchy main theme throughout.

The plot, meanwhile, shows the gang cleverly take up various disguises to accomplish their criminal schemes (dressing up as undertakers, members of a film crew and priests during the course of the film); interestingly, the scene in which they hold a family hostage will be reprised in Milian's subsequent and better-known effort in the genre, ALMOST HUMAN (1974) - where he actually plays the psychotic leader of a gang of crooks. Also, the vulgar humor associated with the genre only makes itself felt in the scenes taking place on the set of an erotic movie and, later, in a hippie commune; in fact, the film's tone is generally quite serious - but this doesn't mean that the hard-boiled dialogue, which so characterizes the poliziotteschi, has been downplayed (thus raising the occasional chuckle, especially among those fluent in Italian).

I watched this via a recording off Italian TV but as the reception wasn't perfect - not to mention the fact that I was surprisingly impressed by the film - I'll have to pick up No Shame's reportedly solid R1 DVD release somewhere down the line...