Two Supercops

I due superpiedi quasi piatti; comedy, Italy / Germany, 1976; D: E.B. Clucher, S: Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, David Huddleston, Luciano Catenacci, Ezio Marano, Luciano Rossi, Laura Gemser

Miami. The thin Matt and the corpulent Wilbur are looking for a job in a port, but get in trouble with the gangster union that controls the port and beat them up. When the uneven duo tries to rob a store, they accidentally storm into the wrong room, into the police recruitment center, and are forcefully persuaded to join among their ranks. Now as police officers, Wilbur can't stand that Matt is always praised by Captain McBride. They start to solve the case of a murdered Chinese worker and once again meet the gangster union that smuggles drugs. The gangsters try to eliminate them unsuccessfully, until the duo storms their hideout in a bowling alley and arrest them.

As a carefree piece of pure light entertainment, "Two Supercops" are actually quite a solid comedy with decent jokes that doesn't try to be anything more than it sets out. The movie works at best the first 20 minutes due to the charisma by cult Italian comedians Terence Hill and Bud Spencer whose interaction still has some charm even in this watered-down mainstream version that's just a copy of a copy of their original films, while especially good are the scenes of the running gag where they constantly destroy the car of the gangsters, in the scene where Matt has a gun in his hand and forces them to "enthusiastically" demolish their own car with sledge hammers. The main plot where they become police officers, though, quickly oozes off into pale nothing, offering weak gags, though one is so over-the-top politically incorrect that it's funny, nontheless (the black comedy sequence where Matt pretends to be walking on crutches and makes outrageous grimaces by faking to be communicating via sign language with the "deaf mute" Wilbur to trick some punks causing trouble at a diner), and rather standard story build up. There is simply too much empty walk and "boring" scenes that overstretches this film way past its prime, and one feels the authors needed more good jokes to sustain this. As it is often the case in Hill-Spencer comedies, the most fun moment turns out to be the finale that once again finds inspiration after the mild middle part of the film, that culminates in the funny fist fights of the duo with the two dozen gangsters in a bowling alley, while an ignorant gangster henchman again and again tries to inform his busy boss how he "saw two suspicious people around the building".

Grade:+