Red Hot Shot (1970) User Reviews (3)

Fascinating Italian crime drama

[The_Void · 7/10 · 2 November 2006]

Colpo Rovente was released a couple of years before the Giallo boom in the early seventies, and the film is more like the American film noir movement than Italy's finest cinematic export. Indeed, the film is often called a 'psychedelic noir' and this atmosphere is achieved through some bizarre set design and the soundtrack. The film also features a voice-over, which serves in giving it that classic noir feel. Colpo Rovente is set in New York, and unlike a lot of Italian films set in America; actually does a decent job of making New York the central location. The plot reminded me more of the later Italian 'Polizi' films than a Giallo, and focuses on crime in New York. Frank is a police inspector that was on the case of MacBrown; the head of a pharmaceutical company, and suspected of dealing in drugs. However, Frank was pulled off the case and shortly thereafter; MacBrown is murdered in the middle of a group of people by an unseen assassin. Frank is called in to investigate the murder. But the dead bodies soon start to pile up...

Given the time in which it was made, Piero Zuffi's only feature film as a director isn't as sordid or as gory as what we would later come to associate Italian cult films with. But the film makes up for its lack of sex and blood with a fairly engaging plot line and some great visuals. It has to be said that the plot line moves a little sluggishly in places, and in typical Italian style; it doesn't always make sense, but generally it has enough to keep the audience watching and patience is rewarded with a great little twist at the end. The cast isn't very notable, but future Giallo heroine Barbara Bouchet stands out. Bouchet looks particularly tasty in this one, as she gets to don a stylish black wig! The plot takes in ideas of the 'horrors' of organised crime, and although it doesn't quite analyse them to any substantial extent; Colpo Rovente does feel like a film that has had some thought put into it. Overall, I can't say that this is one of the best Italian movies I've seen, but it's certainly one of the more unique ones and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to the cult fan!

Good thriller

[stefanozucchelli · 7/10 · 26 March 2022]

Well done thriller with a dramatic and not at all positive ending dismayed by a tide of death. A depressed detective looking for revenge ends up finding the solution of the case but will only get another disappointment about the reality of the world in which he lives. There is no one who is saved in this movie, not even the optimism of the viewer.

One wild movie

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 19 January 2024]

Piero Zuffi was an Italian set designer and painter who worked for a decade at Milan's historic opera house Teatro alla Scala. He also worked as a production designer on several movies, directed and wrote this movie - with Ennio Flaiano - and wrote one other, General Della Rovere.

So yeah, this is a poliziotteschi with giallo leanings, but when you've watched more than four hundred gialli, you start hunting for things you haven't seen. Also released as Red Hot Shot and The Syndicate: A Death In The Family, this is the story of NYPD detective Frank Berin (Michael Reardon) who is trying to learn who killed a pharmaceutical company owner named Mac Brown (Vittorio Duse), gunning him down right in the middle of Wall Street. There are no leads or suspects, so Brown's daughter Monica (Barbara Bouchet) goes on TV and offers a reward of $250,000 for any information.

Berin is no fan of the Brown family, as he's always felt that they ran the heroin trade in the Big Apple, but his case ended when his main witness Fanny (Susanna Martinková) was blinded. And Monica is worried that whoever killed her father is coming after her. That killer could be her fiancee, Don Carbo (David Groh).

What's kind of strange is that Michael Reardon was in two acting roles. This movie and a bit part on the Burt Reynolds' TV show Hawk. And that's it. This movie is near impossible to find and Reardon died in 2006. This was given an X rating for some reason, so it never really played, but it's astounding thanks to Berin going wild with its look, filling it with a great Piero Picceroni score, parties in mirrored rooms, numerous flashing light shows, old rich people gorging themselves on a nonstop menu of food while near a swimming pool and a scene where drug addicts nearly take on the look and feel of Romero's zombies. And perhaps strangest of all, Bouchet is a brunette!

There are giallo elements in this and yes, there are tons of plot holes and the story isn't all that great, but there are so many weird elements in it that I think you really have to see it. Speaking of the soundtrack, it's been released several times, but this hasn't come out on DVD or blu ray. In a world where every movie has been rereleased so many times, let's get this out and into peoples' hands!