Another Poliziotteschi by Enzo G. Castellari, a follow-up to THE BIG RACKET, just as sensationalist, just as sensational and also starring Fabio Testi. This one is clearly inspired by the French Connection fims and this time Testi plays an undercover cop trying to bust a heroin ring. The film begins with him buying drugs in Hong Kong, Amsterdam and New York before returning to Rome, where he gets busted, befriends a junkie in jail, and uses him as a conduit into the local dealers and couriers. David Hemmings narratively plays the detective who’s the only one in the know as to Testi’s true identity and purpose;  industrially he functions like Vincent Gardenia in THE BIG RACKET, as a box office hope of some Anglo-American exposure.

The film is beautifully shot with some dazzling panning zooms that involve very intricate framing knitted together marvellously in editing to maintain pace and usually ending on some striking composition:

An attempt at providing the sex the filmmakers think audiences wanted in that period is quite lurid but interestingly narrated. Are we being shown something actually happening behind a door or is it the boyfriends’s projected dream or a fear; or a combination of both?. See the exchange of looks the precedes the sex scene:

It features remarkable staging:

and marvellous set-pieces such as the one in the Rome metro, which must then have been in the process of being built:

A superb bike chase and shootout:

and some great stunts throughout, including this areal one:

The stunts remain so thrilling that they raise questions as to why the action sequences in contemporary action cinema usually aren’t. What is the effect of CGI on how audiences experience action/

Fabio Testi has a very particular ‘look’ in THE HEROIN BUSTERS, and I don’t remember anything quite like this from the 70s, flares yes, platforms yes, pointy collars yes, but those are for other people in this movie. He wears one outfit in the whole film — dressing or undressing the various components: knee-high boots with jeans and a long denim jacket tied in the middle with a thin scarf, lots of necklaces and a baseball cap. I don’t remember anything quite like it, like a Carnaby Street variant of 90s grunge. He’s supposed to play an undercover cop though everything about the outfit says ‘look at me!’

 

 

The ten years since Blow UP (Antonioni, 1966) had not been kind to David Hemmings:

The filming in front of things with characters in the background and the striking compositions seen in THE BIG RACKET are evident here too:

 

Every image is a pleasure to see, even in the most lurid contexts:

this film also features the on-location shooting seen in THE BIG RACKET, this time also as setting for spectacular set-pieces:

A real pleasure to see and I’m eager for more

 

José Arroyo