The late Gian Maria Volonté plays a newly appointed police chief and head fascist who has his own ideas of how to deal with the disease that is organized crime and terrorism: "suppression is the only cure". He is also convinced that he as a representative of the law also stand above it. To test his theory he kills his mistress (Florinda Bolkan) and takes charge of the investigation himself, then waits the whole movie to see if he will get caught. But even though his fingerprints are all over the murder scene, nobody suspects him. At first he is also somewhat intrigued by it all, but as time goes by he becomes more and more frustrated and starts to give away clues to his guilt. He forces eye-witnesses to him point him out and he tampers with evidence. Still no one dare to look in his direction. He is completely and fully beyond suspicion.

Strangely forgotten and ignored in these DVD days, Italian director (and whole-hearted marxist) Elio Petri deserves a wider audience. Investigation is the typical Elio Petri film. An aggressive social satire, done with beautiful visual flair (here the stunning cinematography by Luigi Kuveiller) and a strong dose of surreal paranoia (see also The Tenth Victim or The Assassin). It is also one of the most intriguing Italian police-thrillers of the '70s. Although it don't really fall into the same category as the more widely known entries with Maurizio Merli or Franco Nero which were essentially variations of Dirty Harry. Elio Petri had clearly no intention in that direction. Instead of seeing violence as presumption for the police work, as in most American films, Petri sees it as an occupational disease and criticize it. There is a key scene somewhere in the middle of the film where Volonté talks to his mistress, saying "The law, any law, makes the accused become like a child, and I become the father who can't be touched". At which she replies, "Actually you're more like a child than any man I know". The violence is a contagion which strikes those who tries to maintain the law and they will become, act, think, behave like the criminal. The film becomes as much Petri's attempt at making this point as it is the character's attempt at making his.

Otherwise the film may kick in too many directions for the unaccustomed viewer and some may find the storytelling a little too off-beat. Especially since the storyline is constantly interfered by flashbacks with characters from the past walking in and out of the main frame. But regardless of your opinion about its entertaining value, Investigation is a good, brave and a not so little absurd movie that has something to say about the time at which it was made and deserves to be seen for that alone. And for Gian Maria Volonté.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.