The Cynic, the Rat & the Fist

Umberto Lenzi's 1977 film was made at the hardest point of the Italian crime cycle known as poliziottesco. A criminal comes after the inspector who put him away; the inspector survives the attack, lets it be believed he died, and goes under. Ordered out of the city, he stays and sets about taking the fugitive by his own methods. Having Maurizio Merli, John Saxon and Tomas Milian in the same picture is a notable combination for the genre in that period. Lenzi presents the law as an obstacle and legitimises the officer who works outside it; the effect of Italy's political violence in the seventies on this cycle is plainly visible. The pace is high, the violence direct, the moral question almost absent. Who it's for: viewers seeking seventies Italian crime film and the harder end of genre cinema. Who it's not for: anyone who will be troubled by a point of view that endorses police violence.