Buitres sobre la ciudad (1981)

Maurizio Merli plays the part of an journalist investigating the Mafia, and Hugo Stiglitz is his photographer sidekick. Despite a number of fights, car chases and explosions, for the first half of the film the action is not at the usual height of Italians police flicks, with little blood spilled and punches thrown that look more like badminton serves. The last half of the movie is decidedly more interesting, with several brutal scenes. The journalist gets savagely beaten while elsewhere his girl is captured and raped. Merli then switches into action hero mode. In one scene he comes busting right through a wall, gun blazing, and eventually resorts to kidnapping and torture to get his revenge against the bad guys. The tone of reactionary vigilantism in the film almost seems to wish for a return to the old Fascist regime, when at least organized crime could not get a foothold.