Like Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan, Inspector Olmi (Maurizio Merli) is a loose cannon, a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of cop, a one-man army who's not going to let technicalities like due process and presumed innocence stand in the way of his self-righteous vigilantism. Following the grisly murder of a seemingly innocent young couple - she's found dead on a riverbank with her throat slashed, he's burned to a crisp in his car - Olmi traces the murders to diamond smuggler Degan (longtime character actor Massimo Serato, of El Cid and The Killer Nun), but a corrupt judge facilitates Degan's getaway and Olmi is transferred from homicide to Roma's "emergency squad" division.

In that capacity Olmi embarrasses the police force even further (while winning popular support). After a convicted felon makes a daring escape en route to jail, Olmi, aboard a police helicopter, tracks down the fleeing crime boss and members of his gang and shoots them in cold blood. This is visually quite spectacular but hilariously improbable. The suspects are madly running away on foot and Olmi's shooting at them with a tiny pistol aboard a racing helicopter, but still somehow succeeds in hitting all of them dead-on from at least 500 meters away.

The indefatigable inspector is transferred yet again, and soon begins a passionate (and largely superfluous) romance with schoolteacher Anna (Keoma's Olga Karlatos) but can he keep his finger off the trigger for long?

The mystifyingly-named Convoy Busters (there's nary a convoy in sight, though the C.W. McCall novelty song and Sam Peckinpah's movie version were popular around this time) doesn't have much to offer beyond its mindless action, but as mindless action goes, it's pretty good. Over the course of the film, Olmi shoots about a hundred men, and is so trigger-happy that it eventually becomes comical. Though obviously produced on a much tighter budget than your average Hollywood-made cop thriller, the film has its share of impressive set pieces, particularly when Merli gamely puts himself into the middle of the action, often without a stunt double. It's clearly him aboard the helicopter dangerously swooping over the gangsters as the scurry across the hilly landscape, and near the end of the picture he's seen dangling from a rope perhaps 15 stories above the ground with no safety cables in sight.

The film seems to have been produced with the full cooperation of the Italian police, as there is much interesting footage taken at what would appear to be real precincts and some kind of high-tech nerve center in Rome.

Though the screenplay (by Teodoro Agrimi, Gino Capone, and director Stelvio Massi) acknowledges Olmi as a man out of control, ready to beat the shit even out of female suspects ("We he gets mad," one colleague says, "Olmi really lets go!"), it's mostly just cribbing the Dirty Harry template rather than expanding upon it.

Merli, who reportedly parlayed his resemblance to Franco Nero into a film career, is okay. Stelvio Cipriani's score is fairly good, worthy of its own soundtrack album.

Video & Audio

NoShame delivers a fine 16:9 transfer of Convoy Busters in a widescreen transfer of 1.77:1 that approximates the original (probably 1.85:1) release and has good color (original prints by Gevacolor) and contrast. The original Italian credits are retained, and audio is available in the original Italian (with optional English subtitles) or in a decent English-dubbed version that has cleaner 2.0 audio. Happily, the subtitles are accurate translations, not "dubtitles."

Extra Features

Convoy Busters supplements are a mixed bag, really too much of a good thing. There's more than an hour of interviews directed by Riccardo Trombetta: Merli on Merli (a conversation with actor Maurizio Matteo Merli, the son of star Maurizio Merli; A Star Was Born (a conversation with journalist Eolo Capacci); My Good Fella Maurizio (a conversation with actor Enio Girolami); ER Prota (a conversation with director Enzo G. Castellari); and Bullet in the Closet (a conversation with director Ruggero Deodato). However, the cumulative effect is overkill - it's like watching miles of raw footage that would play far better tightly edited into a 20-minute featurette along the lines of Blue Underground's typical documentaries. (Several of these 4:3 interviews also have notably bad sound.)

Also included is Cop on Fire, an extended trailer for a retro (and not very interesting-looking) poliziotteschi starring Maurizio Matteo Merli. (The senior Merli having died prematurely of a myocardial infarction at the age of 49.)

Instead of the usual booklet, NoShame opted for a full-blown graphic novel, 16 pages in full-color, in the style of '70s poliziotteschi. "The De Falco Solution" is written by Diego Cajelli and illustrated by Maurizio Resenzweig.

Finally, an Original Theatrical Trailer is 16:9 and subtitled, and a Poster and Still Gallery features an odd assortment of miscellanea, from what looks like frame grabs to personal photos and pub stills from other, unidentified movies.

Parting Thoughts

Convoy Busters is for undemanding action fans or those attracted to Italy's hit-and-miss poliziotteschi genre, of which this ranks squarely in the middle.

Stuart Galbraith IV talks about Invasion of Astro-Monster in an audio commentary track that's just one part of Classic Media's upcoming Godzilla Classic Collector's Edition. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.