One more example of what the Italian film industry gave us in the seventies, forty years ago. Violent, brutal with a gratuitous cruelty every ten minutes, but with so many exciting and unbelievable sequences. And also sometimes unexpected schemes and endings, downbeat ones, for this movie. That's a buddy movie, where a cop befriends an ex army officer to fight against corrupt politicians implicated with the mob. It is laughable at many moments. The other user is right, Henry Silva is always at the good moment and at the good place where action is, where the bad guys are...Ha ha ha Such as this terrible - or terrific - sequence where he is in the park with his sweet heart and when two hoodlums arrive to assault a woman and take her purse. Our lead hero is here by pure coincidence...The park seems desert and suddenly, once he has begun to annihilate one of the hoodlums, who falls on the ground, a dozen of persons, simple walkers, emerge from the lawns and the trees to lynch the down hoodlum. You have here so many unnecessary bloody scenes and unnecessary sexist and brutal sequences. But, after all, that's an Italian crime flick from the seventies. Ninety percent look like this one, most are better done of course, even the pure action features, directed by the likes of Enzo Castellari, Sergio Sollima, Fernando Di Leo, Umberto Lenzi, Damiano Damiani or Pasquale Squieteri. The ending reminded me two Jean-Pierre Melville's films; LE SAMOURAI and UN FLIC...The movie buffs will know what I am talking about. A very good bad film for die hard fans only.

"Poliziotti Violenti" aka. "Crimebusters" (1976) is a decent enough, though in no way outstanding example for the Italian Poliziottesco, which mainly profits from the great Henry Silva in one of the two leading roles. The ultimate bad-ass Silva, doubtlessly one of the greatest 70s cult-cinema actors, particularly in the Poliziotteschi-genre, starred in two of the all-time greatest Italian Crime flicks, Fernando Di Leo's "Il Boss" (1973) and Umberto Lenzi's "Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Può Sparare" ("Almost Human", 1974); "Poliziotti Violenti" sadly cannot compete with the greatness of these aforementioned films, and yet it is an entertaining film that is well worth watching for my fellow fans of Italian cult-cinema. It must be said, of course, that director Michele Massimo Tarantini, who is probably most famous for the Cannibal-flick "Nudo e Selvaggio" ("Cannibal Ferox 2", 1985) isn't as accomplished a filmmaker as the brilliant genre-icons Di Leo and Lenzi; yet he made an action-packed, bad-ass and, which is most important, fast-paced and entertaining film here.Silva plays the tough Army major Altieri, who teams up with the hard-boiled cop Tosi (played by regular leading man Antonio Sabato) in order to crush a gang of arms-dealers and corrupt officials... The storyline is pretty standard stuff, with little originality and few surprises. It is well-executed however. The action-scenes and cinematography are well done, and the score is cool (though, again, nothing special for the high Poliziotteschi standards). The stone-faced Henry Silva is fantastic and super-tough in his role as always. Antonio Sabato also fits very well in the other lead of the tough cop here. Sabato starred in numerous Poliziotteschi including Umberto Lenzi's "Milano Rovente", and he arguably had his finest hour in Lenzi's fantastic Giallo "Sette Orchidee Macchiate Di Rosso" ("Seven Blood-Stained Orchids", 1972); he once again delivers in this one, though it is, of course, Henry Silva who steals the show. Regular Italian genre-beauty Silvia Dionisio ("Nude Si Muore", "Blood For Dracula", "Paura In Citta", "Murder Obsession",...) makes a pretty and likable female lead. The film is full of violent action, though not particularly brutal for genre-standards. Overall, "Poliziotti Violenti" is gritty enough and well worth watching for my fellow Italo-Crime fans, though there is a lot in the field that is far more recommendable (such as all films by Fernando Di Leo, Umberto Lenzi, Damiano Damiani and Enzo Castellari, for starters). What I did find surprising about this film, though, is how often the good guys' negligence basically causes the bad guys to kill innocent bystanders. Overall, "Poliziotti Violenti" is certainly no genre-masterpiece, but it's still an entertaining film for Italian cult-cinema fans.

This is not a great movie. Director Michelle Massimo Taranti was very much a hack, and moreover a hack who usually specialized in comedy. Lead actor Henry Silva, on the other hand, was best playing either villains or VERY morally ambiguous anti-heroes (like the brutal gangsters he portrayed in "Cry of a Prostitute" and "The Boss"). Here though he's an annoyingly straight-arrow parachute major who has been sidelined from the army after he filed a report about defective parachutes. He comes to the city and decides to wage a one-man war on crime and corruption after he realizes organized bands of criminals seem to be getting their hands on military weapons. He is helped by a macho but possibly homosexual cop (Antonio Sabato). With the exception of a downbeat ending (and the homosexual subtext), this is way too much like an 80's era American police thriller (a genre which I personally hate). This movie does have some good points. The pure stupidity of the plot is at times pretty entertaining. Silva ALWAYS seems to be where the action is. At one point he thwarts a kidnapping, but nearly barbecues the victim after running the kidnapper's car off the road. Then he knocks a would-be mugger off his scooter bike and the poor guy is set upon by a pack of vengeful senior citizens who beat him mercilessly with their canes in a truly surreal scene. The whole homosexual subtext is also interesting, especially when Sabato's character takes Silva's character into a transvestite bar and goes in the back room to "pump an informant" (actually he slaps the transvestite around, but for all our straight-laced hero knows. . .). I don't mean to imply, however, that this is really a gay movie. Silva, at least, has a love interest played by the sexy Silvia Dionisio. And Dionisio gets naked twice, not in particularly erotic scenes (in the first one she's being assaulted by goons), but a movie with Silvia Dionisio getting naked is ALWAYS better than a movie without Silvia Dionisio getting naked.All in all, this is a pretty mixed bag. It's not great, but it's not totally worthless either.

I cast my mind back to my youth in the late 70's when it comes to this movie. I remember when "The Movie Channel" was the only game in town and this movie was in the monthly rotation. I also recall my brother and I, killing ourselves laughing at the one liners - not even realizing that the actors' voices were dubbed. The fight scenes in it were action packed (reminded me of the OOF! and BAM! of a good Batman episode) and the plot had enough in it to keep a 9 and 12 year old glued to the TV with rapt attention. We watched it so many times busting a gut laughing and quoted the same funny lines from it when it wasn't on....That having been said, it is a bad movie, bad enough not to buy or rent, but if it ever showed up on TV again (probably would have to be the 3am "Insomniac Theatre" or something similar) I would have to tune in for just a moment....just to cast myself back to a simpler time...Most of the comments in this forum are subjective things anyway and my review of this movie is no different - I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone - if it was made today it would receive a scathing review as unimaginative and goofy - but from a 9 year old's perspective, it was the most hilarious and entertaining thing a kid and his brother ever saw in their lives.....you had to be there to understand it...