Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man

This is an interesting Italian crime thriller from notorious "Cannibal Holocaust" director Ruggiero Deodato in that it takes the usual fascist and sexist tendencies of the genre and exaggerates them to the point of ironic parody.

Ray Lovelock and Mark Porel play two rogue motorcycle cops who are more like criminals with badges. They endanger the public, they beat, torture, and shoot suspects, and the avail themselves of any woman they come across. But there is also a definite homosexual subtext between the two characters. Both are played by pretty-boy actors. They ride around on the same motorbike. At and one point, they have what is pretty close to three-way sex with the slutty sister of a gangster they are pursuing. The sister is played by "Fabiana Flavia", who is actually Sofia Dionisio, the younger, bustier sister of Silvia Dionisio, who was Deodato's wife at the time (So, yes, Deodato films a fairly graphic double sex scene with his own sister-in-law!). Silvia Dionisio also has a smaller part as a secretary, but it's a plum part for an actress in one of these macho films, first because she gets to keep her clothes on, and second, because she gets to banter with these two sexist pigs as they shamelessly hit on her (and her "liberated" character definitely gives as good as she gets).

There are some very disturbing moments of violence in this film, equaled only in the genre by Lucio Fulci's notorious "Contraband', Andrea Bianchi's "Cry of a Prostitute",and the grindhouse classic "Rico" (aka "Cauldron of Death"). These films generally vary greatly from intelligent noirish and morally ambiguous fare, where a lone cop or sympathetic criminal is forced to survive in an urban jungle, to trite, right-wing fantasies where a straight-arrow cop takes on mustache-twirling bad guys while his lilly-livered liberal superiors fume. This movie takes the latter path generally, but it exaggerates the vigilante cops so much it becomes a kind of reducto ad absurdum. It's not a great film perhaps, but it is certainly worth watching, especially if you are a fan of the genre.

This film is so manly I grew a third testicle just watching it! Here's a film where men are men, bad guys get a bullet between the eyes just for thinking about committing crime, and women are for shagging and doing the filing. Either director Deodato is taking the piss here, or this is the kind of Eurocrime film that definitely would be accused of being a bit fascist.

Marc Porel and Ray Lovelock are two young coppers who trust each other so much they share a flat, ride tandem on a motorbike, and make inappropriate sexual remarks to their bosses' secretary. They also love a bit of police brutality, as seen when they get involved in a motorbike chase at the start of the film (two robbers try and steal a purse from a woman who won't let it go, even though she's dragged along the road into a lamppost and has her face stomped). After a lengthy, exciting chase, they cause the robbers to crash, and Marc finishes one off by breaking his neck.

Their boss Adolfo Celi seems to put up with their antics, even if he doesn't agree with them. They are all after Mr Big, some guy called Pasquali, and have just set up a special squad in order to track him down, but when the guy who gets eaten by a ridiculous giant alien in the film Contamination gets gunned down, it gives our fellas an excuse to go and shag the bad guy's sister! These guys are so close that Ray Lovelock doesn't sloppy seconds after Marc Porel is finished! Nothing says masculine than not being bothered about stirring another man's custard.

I'm sure this must be some sort of parody but then it's hard to tell in Italian cinema. Every criminal who comes up against the two cops gets killed, including a gang just about to rob a bank (six executions on the streets before a crime's committed?) and remarkably sexist even for an Italian film, plus all the subtle hints that the two cops might be gay. The most telling scene is at the start when the robbers run over a guide dog and everyone just leaves the poor blind guy standing in the middle of the road.

Who knows? I enjoyed it anyway. Bruno Corazzari gets his eyeball poked out too.

An absolutely gonzo Italian action film that's insane before it even starts. Just read that title. Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man. So dumb and self-assured of its hamfisted-ness that you have to admire it.

Another tip-off that this is going to be wild is the fact it's directed by Ruggero Deodato, who's best known for making Cannibal Holocaust, which is one of the most controversial and violent movies of the 1980s (or arguably of all time). This one is similarly twisted and violent, though definitely not as extreme or horrific... even if it cruelly kills a blind man's guide dog on-screen five minutes into the movie (unlike the animal violence in Cannibal Holocaust, I'm pretty sure it's fake here). I guess it's done to show that the movie's not going to mess around. Unsurprisingly, it proceeds as such.

The film has a loose plot which pretty much boils down to two rogue cops taking on violent criminals in ways that are just as violent as the criminals. It's absurd enough that maybe it's intended to be darkly funny or even satirical, but I couldn't be 100% sure. Maybe the film was trying to be cool, but I'd like to think Deodato knew what he was doing here, to some extent (because I do think Cannibal Holocaust has a great deal more satire than some give it credit for).

I don't know, if you find the title funny and like crazy, over-the-top cop movies, this'll probably scratch an itch. But I don't know many people who I'd personally recommend it to, in all honesty, even if I got some enjoyment out of it.

Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (they sure don't make films with awesome titles like this anymore) is a poliziotteschi directed by none other than Ruggero Deodato, the man who would deliver two of the most uncompromising, relentlessly mean-spirited exploitation movies ever in 1980, namely the still notorious Cannibal Holocaust and the depraved sleaze-fest House On the Edge Of the Park. Deodato was a man who never shied away from extremity in his movies and so it was with some interest I went into this one, particularly seeing as the Italian poliziotteschi genre is one hardly renowned for its restraint or political correctness in the first place. Well, I think it would be only fair to say that Deodato has once again delivered a tough genre film, full of excessive violence. Except in this case, and unlike those two infamous movies I mentioned before, the fun factor is considerably higher here as the levels of mean-spiritedness are noticeably lower.

Aside from Deodato at the helm, this one benefits enormously from having Fernando di Leo as its screenwriter. I think it would be fair to say that di Leo is the king of this particular sub-genre and has several outright classics under his belt as director. His input, therefore, is always going to be a significant bonus. It would probably be fair to say that the screenplay to this one is less thoughtful than the ones he used for his own films but it still nevertheless gets us from A to B in a highly entertaining fashion. This is one of many Italian cop films which followed the basic template laid down by the international hit Dirty Harry (1971), in that it features the use of brutal police tactics used to sort various low-life criminals out. Other Italian films used this idea, such as Umberto Lenzi's Violent Naples (1976) but where that film had one violent cop, this one has two! They go through the picture killing and torturing criminals, endangering the general public and indulging in sexist behaviour at every given opportunity. These guys work for the special squad section of the Rome police department and the film is basically made up of a number of different encounters they have with various criminals.

Events kick off with no messing about with a great extended motorcycle chase through the scenic streets of Rome, later the boys use their special brand of force against violent criminals holding an unfortunate woman hostage in her home, they also take out a group of thieves before they can even attempt to commit the crime in question and later dispatch a variety of gangsters in a quarry shootout. In other words, this is good violent fun, poliziotteschi style. The manner that these cops deliver their unorthodox brand of violent justice is so casually delivered and at no point in proceedings does anyone truly question their methods, aside from the occasional light ticking off from their superior. But let's be honest, it's this complete lack of any political correctness whatsoever that is a significant part of what makes Italian cop thrillers such fun nowadays – they don't make them like this anymore that's for sure! If you could imagine a parallel universe where 'Starsky and Hutch' were nihilistic police officers who blow up cars on purpose, have threesome sex with suspects and break the necks of criminals for the hell of it, then it would be something not far off Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man. You've just got to love the Italians.

This is one of Deodato's earlier films. Deodato is best known as the director of the notorious film "Cannibal Holocaust". With a script by Di Leo and masterful direction by Deodato, you get a film that is violent, ruthless and exciting. One can easily see the influence on contemporary directors like Tarantino (a huge Di Leo fan). This film also has a lot in common with movies like Dirty Harry, where a cop uses extreme measures to deliver justice and always has his boss coming down on him for being too violent in doing so. Except in this film it is two guys who team up to clean the streets. The viewer will be surprised at the amount of violence in this film when considering the year it was made. If you can locate this film, its worth watching.