Director: Umberto Lenzi

Writer: Umberto Lenzi, Dardano Sacchetti, and Elisa Briganti

Starring: Tomas Milian, Claudio Cassinelli, Henry Silva, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Robert Hundar

Rating: ★★★½

Fractured Visions is bringing Free Hand for a Tough Cop to the UK on Blu-ray for the first time ever. Umberto Lenzi’s classic crime story has be remastered in HD and couldn’t look better. The set is packed with special features, including interviews with the cast and commentaries. There’s also a new translation on the English subtitles.

A young and very ill girl has been kidnapped, and it’s crucial she is saved and taken to hospital as soon as possible. Inspector Sarti (Claudio Cassinelli) breaks out Sergio ‘Monnezza’ Marazzi (Tomas Milian) from prison in the hopes that he will help him save the young girl. Together they stop at nothing to bring the girl to safety, before her time runs out.

This is an action-packed film that races along. It’s only ninety minutes, but so much happens in that time. The pacing is so quick as it jumps from beat to beat, never slowing down. It’s not too fast to let you enjoy it and you get enough time with the main characters to get a real sense of who they are. This is easy watching where you can just watch the action and crime as the heroes try to save the kidnapped girl before it’s too late.

Speaking of crime, there is a lot of it in this film. The police inspector breaks Monnezza out of prison, in a silly way. He literally walks in and knocks him out, then just carries him out the gate. There’s a train robbery that goes wrong, a couple of recurring characters who beat people with a brick inside a tissue box and even a political assassination that gets in the way at one point. So much happens that when you get to the end, it’s hard to figure out how they fit it all in such a short run-time.

There are a few car chases in the film that are really well made. You can feel the speed as they glide down roads and fly around corners. It feels dangerous and looks awesome. Behind every scene is the most 1970s cop score you could imagine. It’s genuine and honest theme that is typical of something a cop film would parody now.

Free Hand for a Tough Cop is a funny, over-the-top action film. The characters are great, the car sequences are excellent, the music perfectly fits. It’s an all-round good time.

Free Hand for a Tough Cop is on Blu-ray 29 November from Fractured Visions

Pre-order from Fractured Visions: https://www.fracvis.co.uk/