8/10
Lost in translation, alas
15 November 2006
This is one of Stelvio Massi's best movies ever. A lot of first class stunts, chases and shootings that make this movie better than the average of Italian 'poliziotteschi' movies. But the whole plot is about a man who feels uncomfortable with himself both as a cop and as a man. The title in Italian is "Un poliziotto scomodo", literally "An uncomfortable cop". It has been freely translated as "Convoy Buster" even though there's no convoy in the whole movie. The original title has a double meaning. It means both "A bothering cop" and "A discomforted cop". It's a reference to the two halves into which the movie can be subdivided.

In the first half Inspector Olmi is in Rome, investigating on a double murder related to a rich and politically influential diamond smuggler. As Inspector Olmi finds out that the smuggler has bribed the judge who had to sue him, he realizes that it's depressing to be such a goop cop if you ain't backed by the system. Instead of promoting him, in fact, the local chief of police degrades him from homicide division to patrol. Inspector Olmi understands he is bothering the "big fishes", so he decides to give up and move to a quiet seaside small town, where he locks down is gun and tries to be an anonymous non-violent officer. He meets a beautiful woman who eventually becomes his girlfriend. But organized crime won't leave him alone as he finds out a gang of gun dealers that operates in that area. He resumes his Clint Eastwood's attitude and manages to annihilate the criminals, but in the final scene we see him drop down his gun and badge, desperate at his own tragic fate: he is not fit for life, since he is not appreciated as the good cop he is and there's nowhere he can hide from violence and blood-thirsty organized crime...

One of those excellent movies when there was no such thing as a happy ending...
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