Odds and Evens

Odds and Evens (Pari e dispari, 1978) is Sergio Corbucci's crime-comedy romp, available to watch online on iFILM. Navy lieutenant Johnny Firpo gets handed a job too big for one man: shut down the gambling syndicate that has its hooks in every sport across Florida.

His only real shot is tracking down his half-brother Charlie, a gruff trucker who knows the underworld of rigged games better than any agent ever could. Terence Hill is the dapper man of the law; Bud Spencer is the mountain who settles arguments with his fists. Together they wreck crooked card rooms, flip roulette tables, and hand out slaps to a small army of mob heavies. The plot is really just an excuse for the duo's trademark brawls, where nobody truly gets hurt but the punches land by the dozen.

Corbucci, once a maker of brutal spaghetti westerns, traded the grit for pure good-natured slapstick here. By the late Seventies the Hill-and-Spencer pairing was a sure thing in Italian cinema, and this is their formula at its plainest: zero menace, maximum comic mayhem. Perfect when you want to switch your brain off and laugh. Stream Odds and Evens (1978) online on iFILM.