Another well made, but snail paced film from Alberto De Martino, a quasi-giallo set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which lends a surreal Breaking Bad vibe to the proceedings.
A senator is gunned down outside of his house and a man who claims he was tricked into being there is arrested and charged with his murder. Antonio Sabato is the hot shot reporter who thinks that something down quite sound right about the whole deal, and sets out to prove the man innocent, only to end up getting the guy sent down and marked for execution! Whoops! Better try harder, Antonio! Hindering or helping Antonio is his boss Keenan Wynn, a friend of the senator, and Barbara Bouchet, who claims to have witnessed a man with icy eyes talking to the accused. Antonio thinks she's full of crap, but then he starts to receive contact from the guy with the icy eyes, things get very serious.
Indeed, so serious that director De Martino must have thought that things weren't stupid enough (I'm sure he was happy things were dull enough though), so he added in the semi-supernatural plot twist of the astrologer who predicts Antonio will die just before midnight on the same day that guy in jail will get gassed. Then this guy proceeds to be everywhere Antonio is, just to remind him over and over and over again! Then there's the insurance salesman who is oblivious to the car chases and threats to Antonio while continually trying to sell him life insurance. Oh, and the bit where Antonio thinks he's survived to midnight until someone reminds him that it's Daylight Savings Time and the clocks have gone back one hour! That last hour where Antonio drives around trying to solve the case it most hilarious of all, because he zips around about forty locations, has a fight, slaps Barbara Bouchet around, drives all around town and makes it outside of the prison for the end of the film, all within one hour. Amazing.
This is yet another boring film with just the odd bit of interest from De Martino. Somehow this guy went on to work with a lot of A-list American actors. Go figure.
