A Special Cop in Action

A school bus is hijacked with the children still on it. Commissario Betti takes the case. The trail leads him to a boss operating out of Milan and to a large drug trafficking operation, with bank robberies, car chases and prison scenes along the way. Directed by Marino Girolami under the pen name Franco Martinelli, the film is the third outing for Maurizio Merli's Commissario Betti after Roma violenta and Napoli violenta. The Italian crime picture of the seventies runs its formula here all the way out: the commissioner who ignores the rules, a justice system that does not work, the matter settled on the street. That approach comes out of the political arguments of the period and sits in a contested place today. John Saxon is the name on the other side.