Tagline(s):	He cut the red tape and left it full of bullet holes!
	Professional. Unscrupulous.

Nomination Year: 2016

SYNOPSIS: This movie is also known as Confessions of a Police Captain, and is set in Italy. It was shot in the 1970s, and every eye-popping brain-searing jaw-dropping sanity-blasting occurrence of paisley ties in contrasting colors reminded us of this fact. The ties were beyond distracting -- they were clearly the most interesting thing in the movie.

Because, alas, a movie centering around a hotshot new District Attorney, a worldly-wise police captain, and a bunch of union-busting real estate fraud ... is not the most suspenseful.

No, it's one of those movies with a Theme. A Message. A Central Question. Is it better to be corrupt against a corrupt system, or to remain pure while the system won't let you win?

Right. Enough of that. Plot now. Police commissioner Bonavia (Martin Balsam) arranges to have a clean-freak hitman released from his insane asylum. Bonavia is hoping the hitman will kill the mafia boss (who I will call Mob Boss, because I didn't write his name down, and it's not in the imdb credits) behind much of the local corruption.

The hitman kills several people, but Mob Boss was tipped off, and escapes. An enterprising young Deputy District Attorney named Traini gets involved. Traini quickly realizes that Bonavia is corrupt, but can't prove it. He and Bonavia have lots of fascinating plot-slowing discussions.

Meanwhile, the Mob Boss is in hiding somewhere blue. The Deputy D.A. meets with him, promising to give the Mob Boss the same legal protections that any other citizen would get.

People from the past keep popping up and getting killed as Bonavia tries to build a solid case against Mob Boss, and Traini tries to build one against Bonavia.

At about the 45 or 50-minute mark, someone slipped several bowls of Drama Flakes into the script, because Traini and Bonavia suddenly have a shouting match, sounding for all the world like a weird lover's quarrel:

"What if I charge you?"
"Then I'll slander you! I'll say you took bribes!"
"But I never took bribes! You know that!"
"I know that! That's why it's slander!"
(etc)

Then they stomp off and nearly get into each other's cars.

And a flamboyant homosexual stereotype shows up just long enough to call Bonavia, run across a street, and get arrested.

Then Bonavia writes out a confession for Traini and walks out of the police station. Traini reads it too late to stop Bonavia from committing the final crime in his confession -- shooting Mob Boss in front of half-a-dozen witnesses.

Bonavia goes to jail, and is shivved in the screening room. He dies watching a far better movie than the one he's in.

Smithee Award Nominations

Inane Dialogue
What Can I Tell You about This Clip? "What can you tell me?" "Just what I said."

Directors

Director	Claim to Fame
Damiano Damiani	Wrote Confessions of a Police Captain. Directed How to Kill a Judge and Amityville II: The Possession.

Cast

Actor	Character	Claim to Fame
Franco Nero	Deputy D.A. Traini	Very prolific (one might say indiscriminate) Italian badass actor, and has a great singing voice, too. Was Lancelot in Camelot, Amerigo Vessepi in Django Unchained, and Julius in John Wick: Chapter 2.
Martin Balsam	Commissario Giacomo Bonavia	Veteran of such films as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and Catch- 22, 12 Angry Men, Psycho, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and many others.
Marilù Tolo	Serena Li Puma	Played Xenia in The Last Days of Pompeii, Terry Brown in Espionage in Lisbon, and a goddess in Eneide.
Claudio Gora	District Attorney Malta	Il Marito in The Facts of Murder and the big screen's Dr. Mabuse (as in The Death Ray of... ).
Luciano Catenacci	Ferdinando Lomunno/Ferdinando Dubrosio	Sometimes "Luciano Lorcas," he played many a cop and mafioso. Oh, and Benito Mussolini in Girolimoni, the Monster of Rome, who was kinda both.
Giancarlo Prete	Giampaolo Rizzo	Probably the most mainstream film he was in is as Fornac in Ladyhawke. But was also Scorpion in Warriors of the Wasteland, Tommy in Street Law (also with Franco Nero), and Strike in Escape from the Bronx.
Arturo Dominici	Lawyer Canistraro	Was in a lot of Hercules films, starting as Eurysteus in '59's Hercules.
Michele Gammino	Gammino	Played such disparate parts as Leonid Brezhnev in Pope John Paul II and Raffaele in Erotic Exploits of a Sexy Seducer.

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