the time it came out in 1977, this period Mafia drama from director 
Pasquale Squitieri (who tackled similar material that same decade with Camorra, Corleone, and Blood Brothers) had quite a bit of recent cinematic history to parse out with its tale of a lawman taking extreme measures to deal with local crime. Franco Nero had tackled Sicilian organized crime in films like 1968's The Day of the Owl, Al Pacino had spent an extended time in Sicily in 1972's The Godfather, American justice had been meted out with an iron fist in films like Walking Tall and the Dirty Harry films, and the poliziotteschi were successfully reflecting Italy's turbulent violent reality on the big screen. Though this film is considerably less violent than some of its fellow films from '77 (among them Beast with a Gun, The Heroin Busters, A Man Called Magnum, and The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist), you can feel many of the same anxieties at play here. 
in hot water with far more 
than just local mobsters. 
throughout 
the film. The Italian track is preferable, but the English dub is well done and makes for a satisfying way of watching the film as well. The first of the three video extras is an archival 2009 interview with Squitieri and Gemma (34m49s) about the film's inception during a visit to America for a meeting with Dino De Laurentiis about directing First Blood(!), the process of getting Cardinale (Squitieri's wife) on board, attempts to cast Burt Lancaster, Gemma's approach to the film and his one big shootout scene, the state of Sicilian organized crime in the '20s and later on, and the impact of the film's release. Then you get a new interview with Squitieri biographer Domenico Monetti (40m15s) about the film's importance as one of the director's most successful films, its ties to his other Mafia stories, the adaptation of Arrigo Petacco's source book of the same title, the relationship between fascism and the Mafia, and the themes here that would run through later Squitieri films. Finally there's an enthusiastic new appreciation by filmmaker Alex Cox (11m20s), whose well-chronicled enthusiasm for spaghetti westerns makes him ideal to appraise Gemma's life and career (including the source of his signature cheekbone scar) as well as this film's place in his larger filmography from peplums to major dramas and thrillers. Also included is the original Italian trailer, while the package comes with an insert booklet featuring a new essay by Guido Bonsaver about the star, director, and true story, plus an original article about Mori's Mafia-busting tactics. 