A surprisingly gripping and unusual thriller on which star Franco Nero also served as executive producer, this emerges as a reasonable mix of characterization and more traditional crime-drama thrills.
Nero wishing to be free of having to look after his senile mother doubles as an ageing, mild-mannered and crippled accountant so he can pull off a robbery (his small ramshackle apartment is even connected to the building's basement). While the one-man heist is successful, he carelessly leaves behind enough clues to arouse the suspicion of a burly security guard at the office, the canteen owner and his sluttish assistant (Dalila di Lazzaro), and even the gay attendant at a sauna he frequents. Unsurprisingly, they all want a piece of the action and Nero is forced to get rid of them; eventually, it's his own mother (regaining her senses just enough to recognize Nero from a police identikit in the papers!) who unwittingly puts the cops on his trail but, since the audience is clearly rooting for the criminal, he's allowed to escape at the end.
The film features a bouncy score by Ennio Morricone, though it's not one of his classic soundtracks. By the way, while Giannetti's directorial career produced no notable work, he had earlier won an Oscar for co-writing DIVORCE Italian STYLE (1961).
Nero wishing to be free of having to look after his senile mother doubles as an ageing, mild-mannered and crippled accountant so he can pull off a robbery (his small ramshackle apartment is even connected to the building's basement). While the one-man heist is successful, he carelessly leaves behind enough clues to arouse the suspicion of a burly security guard at the office, the canteen owner and his sluttish assistant (Dalila di Lazzaro), and even the gay attendant at a sauna he frequents. Unsurprisingly, they all want a piece of the action and Nero is forced to get rid of them; eventually, it's his own mother (regaining her senses just enough to recognize Nero from a police identikit in the papers!) who unwittingly puts the cops on his trail but, since the audience is clearly rooting for the criminal, he's allowed to escape at the end.
The film features a bouncy score by Ennio Morricone, though it's not one of his classic soundtracks. By the way, while Giannetti's directorial career produced no notable work, he had earlier won an Oscar for co-writing DIVORCE Italian STYLE (1961).