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Released by: Raro Video
Released on: June 2nd, 2015.
Director: Luciano Ercoli
Cast: Arthur Kennedy, Claudio Cassinelli, Sara Sperati, Franco Fabrizi, Bruno Zanin
Year: 1975
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The Movie:
Directed by Luciano Ercoli, Killer Cop literally begins with a bang as a bomb goes off in a crowded Milan hotel leaving a dozen corpses in its wake. A police inspector named Matteo Rolandi (Claudio Cassinelli) is a witness to the terrible terrorist attack while the cops figure a political activist named Franco Ludovisi (Bruno Zanin) is the one who was behind it all. The attorney general, Di Federico (Arthur Kennedy), puts Franco under police protection while the investigation is underway, but it's not enough - someone gets to him and takes him out.
Assigned to the case, Rolandi hits the streets and starts snooping around to figure out what he can figure out. He and the cops are going under the assumption that there's a political motive behind the bombing and that there will be more to come. As Rolandi goes about his business, he becomes fairly obsessed with finding out the truth, but of course, corruption and deceit lie in wait around every corner and he may have to take the law into his own hands to sort all of this out…
This one takes a little bit of time to really hit its stride but it's a fairly tense movie nevertheless. The first half of the film is more of a procedural than a Dirty Harry style cop movie but as the story progresses and our lead anti-hero finds himself running out of options, the film goes into some pretty dark territory. Rolandi does not want for ambition or drive, he's got a personal reason for wanting to see the culprit(s) brought to justice but he soon finds out the hard way that he's more or less on his own if he actually wants to make that happen. As desperate times begin to call for desperate measures, the badge seems to matter less than the gun.
Claudio Cassinelli plays this part well. He looks like a tough guy and he acts like a tough guy and so we buy him as a tough guy but he gives Rolandi a sense of street smarts that makes certain scenes considerably more believable than they would have been otherwise. It's one thing to be able to handle yourself in a fight and another thing all together to be able to know who to grill for information and how hard to press when doing that grilling. He's well cast. Throwing Arthur Kennedy into your crime film is never really a bad move either. He's got the aging, curmudgeonly thing down and he too does fine.
Some of the action scenes are pretty solid here, particularly in the film's later half where the violence is turned up considerably. The location photography is also solid here, it adds to the movie's realistic and gritty tone which would appear to be exactly what the late Ercoli was going for, given that the film was actually inspired by a real life bombing that took place in Milan a few years prior. This is one that tends to get lost in the shuffle, buried under better known entries in the same genre by the likes of Fernando Di Leo, Enzo G. Castellari and Umberto Lenzi, but Killer Cop more than holds its own against their entries.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Killer Cop arrives on Blu-ray from Raro in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.35.1 and thankfully this is a considerably better looking effort than a few of the label's other, more problematic releases. There is some mild noise reduction here but it doesn't completely sandblast the picture so grain still comes through and skin looks like skin rather than wax. Detail is fairly decent here, though it can and will vary from shot to shot, which appears to be an issue with how the movie was shot rather than the transfer itself. Black levels are good if shy of reference quality and compression issues are never a big deal. So yeah, all in all, Killer Cop looks pretty good on Blu-ray. Not perfect, but pretty good.
Audio chores are handled by LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks in English and Italian with optional subtitles provided in English only. Audio quality here is generally just fine. Range and depth are pretty much right in-line with what you'd expect from an older film made on a modest budget while the score has good presence to it as well. No issues with any hiss or distortion here. The movie sounds just fine. There are some spots on the English track that were never dubbed, those parts will revert automatically to the Italian track with English subtitles when they occur in the movie.
The main extra on the disc is a twenty-minute interview with production manager Alessandro Calosci who speaks about working with the film's cast and crew, director Ercoli's motives behind making the film, some of the action scenes in the film and some of the political overtones of the picture. This is a pretty decent discussion and a good way to learn a bit more about the feature.
Aside from that, we get menus and chapter selection. Housed inside the case is a full color insert booklet that contains an essay that touches on the film and its place in the Italian crime film boom of the era along with some credits for the film.
The Final Word:
Killer Cop hits the right balance of action, drama and suspense and as such, it makes for top notch entertainment. If you're an Italian crime film fan, this is one well worth seeking out and if Raro's disc isn't loaded with extras it does at least look and sound pretty decent.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
