Rome, Armed to the Teeth

"Rome, Armed to the Teeth" (Roma a mano armata, 1976) is an Italian crime thriller directed by Umberto Lenzi — watch online on iFILM. Commissioner Tanzi does not do procedure. While the Ferrandez gang terrorises Rome with armed robberies, he punches through interrogations and ignores every memo from his superior.

Maurizio Merli — the closest thing Italian genre cinema had to Dirty Harry — squares off against Tomas Milian as a hunchbacked, machine-gun-carrying psychopath. That pairing alone sets the film's temperature. Arthur Kennedy plays the by-the-book superior who keeps raising objections and losing. The confrontations between Tanzi and Ferrandez carry a genuine unease; Milian plays the character as someone who cannot be reasoned with, only cornered.

Shot at the height of the poliziottesco wave, this is Italian B-cinema at full throttle: fast cuts, nasty interrogations, and a cop whose tactics would end his career today. Stream "Rome, Armed to the Teeth" (1976) online on iFILM.