Le Témoin à abattre

With user Enšpígl, we arranged another online TV show and this time the choice fell on an Italian crime drama from the seventies, which Czech Television regularly offers. All the time it was exactly in the spirit of what you can imagine under the term "old Italian crime drama". Perfect old-school car chases with Fiats and Alfas, the occasional shootout, brutality like a pig. In addition, brutality directed at women and children, which by today's standards is actually unthinkable. I won't tell you, at times it was really brutal. I was waiting to see how Franco Nero would deal with it and hoping for a mega cutting denouement. But it didn't happen. The entire film completely contradicted that ending. Then I read a comment from user westman and found out that Czech Television altered the ending of the film? Is that really true? I didn't find any alternative ending on the internet after a while of searching. If it were true, wouldn't that be a bit unnecessary? The film is brutal the whole time, one ending that I was eagerly waiting for and hoping for probably wouldn't change much, right? So it ended without retribution...so it's like it didn't even have an ending. (28/10/2020)

The cult status that this poliziotteschi enjoys in Italy is somewhat undeserved. Franco Nero, on whom the whole film stands and falls, is a great actor, with a wide range of expression, but here Castellari pushes him into a position that is not his own. It reminds me more of Azurito the rabbit on speed – he talks fast, or rather shouts, gesticulates a lot and excessively, just ridiculously overacting and it's not nice to look at. The plot is more sophisticated than in other poliziotteschi films, but it takes quite a long time before anything really interesting happens. There is little action, and instead of no-brain entertainment I got a lot of banter with the perpetually angry Nero. (05/10/2017)