Un poliziotto scomodo

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.