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“High Crime” * (1973, Blue Underground) With the help of retired gangster Fernando Rey, police commissioner Franco Nero sets out to rid his home town of Genoa, Italy of drug dealers, but finds that his two-fisted approach doesn’t sit well with his superior (James Whitmore) or the dealers, who respond to his aggression with even greater violence. One of the better action-fueled crime films from Italy (and Spain) to emerge during the poliziotteschi boom of the early ’70s, “High Crime” benefits from a sure and skillful hand from director Enzo Castellari (the original “Inglorious Bastards”), whose talent for car chases and shoot-outs matches American efforts of the period, and a blond Nero, whose cop knows that his rampaging approach will come to no good, but appears unable or unwilling to change. Blue Underground’s three-disc set offers 4K and Blu-ray presentations, both remastered and uncut (the film’s final minutes are missing in some previous home releases), as well as three commentary tracks (Castellari with his son and BU head Bill Lustig, Nero with action expert Mike Malloy and Lustig, and historians Troy Howarth, Nathaniel Thompson, and Eugenio Ercolani), all of which are rich in production detail and anecdotes. Featurettes on the film with Castellari, Nero, composers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, and members of the crew offer additional perspective, while Malloy’s video essay links “Crime” to “The French Connection” and French noir. A third disc contains the De Angelis’s complete and funky score.
