Review of Emergency Squad (1974) by Mereie D — 21 Jun 2010

Not the best example of an Italian crime film â??non-Umberto Lenziâ??-style. It is nice to see Tomas Milian not playing a psycho killer for once (as I said some time before, some winning formulas are worth changing every once in a while), but as a maverick Interpol inspector with a personal bill to settle, he could have been edited in more prominently by Stelvio Massi (there are just too many parts of the movie without him to show how serious he is about his revenge mission).

Also, he could have done without that eternal cigar he keeps chewing instead of smoking. This movie has a fuzzy plot with a few too many vague additional characters and asides. At the same time, the progress of the story is too dull to keep us on the edge of our seats.

I wasnâ??t too impressed by the overdone characterization of the blonde bimbo girlfriend of the â??Marsiglieseâ?? (Gastone Moschin), the cry baby act of one of his mates when the going gets tough, nor by the music that supports the final confrontation scene (way too pleasant and lacking in ominousness).

The fans of the genre will probably like it for the machine gun action, the traditional armed robbery (with crash helmets as disguises this time), the pathos element (orphaned child, woman getting shot next to her pram), the sexual intimidation (topless girls with plumpy breasts well in view), the views of Pavia, and many more things, but in my opinion, some other, similar movies make a better job of this.