High Crime | |
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Italian film poster for High Crime
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Directed by | Enzo G. Castellari |
Produced by | Edmondo Amati |
Screenplay by |
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Story by | Leonardo Martín |
Starring | |
Music by | Guido & Maurizio De Angelis |
Cinematography | Alejandro Ulloa |
Edited by | Vincenzo Tomassi |
Production
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Distributed by | Fida Cinematografica |
Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
Country |
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Box office | ₤1.625 billion |
High Crime (Italian: La polizia incrimina la legge assolve, Spanish: La policía detiene, la ley juzga) is a 1973 Italian-Spanish poliziottesco film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. The film stars Franco Nero, James Whitmore, Delia Boccardo and Fernando Rey. High Crime was a big success at the time of its release, and helped popularize the Italian cop thriller genre.
A Lebanese drug dealer arrives in Genoa and Vice-Commissioner Belli (Nero) soon tracks him down. After a long car chase, Belli manages to arrest him. However, when the prisoner is being taken to the police station, the police car is bombed before it reaches its target. The Lebanese and four policemen die in the hit, but Belli survives. Belli then goes to Cafiero (Rey), an old-fashioned gangster who claims to have transformed into a peaceful gardener, to question about the bombing and it turns out that there is a new player in town. Cafiero decides to take care of the new gang before the police get to them. His task turns out to be more difficult when his trusted man, Rico (Daniel Martín), turns out to be a mole working for the unknown new gangsters.
Belli's boss, Commissioner Aldo Scavino (Whitmore), has put together a dossier on the city's mafia connections, but thinks that there is not enough hard evidence to take down all the gangsters from top to down. After several discussions with Belli, he finally agrees to take the dossier to the district attorney. However, he is murdered and the dossier is stolen. Belli now takes over Scavino's seat as the Commissioner and eventually finds the murderer. The murderer names Umberto Griva (Duilio Del Prete) as his boss, as Belli expected. When Griva's brother Franco (Silvano Tranquilli) is found murdered, it seems that someone with even higher political connections is trying to take over the city's drug trafficking.