Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

When hard cop Luc Merenda discovers that the old cop he was just talking to that morning has been blown away by some escaped convicts, in addition to several other cops and an child, Luc dispenses justice the only way he knows how - by gunning the bad guys down in cold blood in front of all his colleagues. His superior tells Luc to cool it, then goes off to blow the lid on something he's discovered, getting himself murdered in the process. Now Luc's mad as hell and suspended from the force to boot, so he does the only thing he can - poses as a pimp to get access to a local gang as a getaway driver. That's a plan so daft that you'd have to bitch slap an awful lot of people to get there...and it works.Sure, Luc got a couple of women killed by accident when he called the cops on that robbery (plus the boyfriend of a junky girl who helps him out, plus I guess he gets her cooled too when I think about it), but it does get him noticed by local legitimate businessman Richard Conte, who might employ him, but wants him to demonstrate some mad GTA San Andreas type skills behind the wheel of a car. Does Luc feel guilty about those two women? I don't think he had the time. Of course, this is no straightforward film where Luc just gets his revenge on the bad guys, there's also some politics involved, as it seems the gang are more interested in causing as much havoc as possible than grabbing money, and someone may even be pulling Richard Conte's strings too.Although not up there with the best of the crime films, Violent Professionals is still a good film if you like these kind of things. You know, car chases, people firing guns at each other, Richard Conte's terrible stunt double, Luc Merenda violently assaulting everyone, funky music, smoking. Luc Merenda by the way looks like a really skinny Arnie and is very good at staring at things. Luciano Rossi turns up at the beginning to get himself shot too.

About the only thing I can say good about Milano Trema is that it has some nice shots of Milan in it. This Italian production with a native cast is a poor ripoff of some of our cop dramas like Bullitt or The Seven Ups or even the Dirty Harry series.Luc Merenda an orthodox cop with a Dirty Harry style of doing business does one thing that Harry Callahan would never do, go undercover because too many criminals know his face. He is however suspended for an execution of a pair of escaped criminals.After that his main booster the ever so tolerant police chief of Milan is assassinated by a criminal gang. Merenda goes undercover to find them.The gang is headed by American expatriate Richard Conte who after playing Don Barzini in The Godfather played a lot of cheap grade z productions for a paycheck. He has the look of a man waiting for his paycheck to clear as he mouths his dialog.There's a nice police chase similar to the one in Bullitt in this film. But all in all it's all stuff we've seen better on American cinema.

After his beloved mentor and superior gets killed, rough'n'tumble loose cannon police lieutenant Giorgio Caneparo (well played by the handsome and charismatic Luc Merenda) goes undercover as a vicious criminal in order to infiltrate the bank robbing gang responsible for the hit. Director Sergio Martino, working from a tough, complex script by Ernesto Gastaldi and taking a break from his usual giallo murder mystery thrillers, takes a welcome stab at the Italian crime thriller genre and comes up with an impressively tight, gripping and hard-hitting winner: the constant quick pace rarely flags, the tone is appropriately harsh and no-nonsense (several innocent bystanders get killed which include a little girl and a pregnant woman!), there are occasional startling outbursts of brutal'n'bloody violence, the intricate narrative offers plenty of neat twists and turns, and the action set pieces ate deftly staged with rip-roaring élan (a couple of protracted car chases are especially exciting). This film further benefits from excellent acting by a tip-top cast: Merenda makes for a perfectly rugged and amoral anti-hero, Richard Conte lends able support as smooth capo Padulo, and the lovely Martine Brochard acquits herself nicely as brassy junkie prostitute Maria. Kudos are also in order for Giancarlo Ferrando's fluid, polished cinematography, the moody, groovy score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, and the bitterly cynical bummer ending which concludes everything on a satisfyingly downbeat note. Highly recommended viewing for Italian crime cinema fans.

After his mentor, the only cop who is both honest and "by-the-book" in this movie (and possibly any other Italian "poliziani"), is assassinated in the street, a rogue cop, who has been suspended for gunning down two surrendering suspects, goes undercover, mixing with prostitutes, pimps, and reckless, amateur bank robbers in an effort to crack the case; only to find that it involves both Red Brigade terrorists and corruption at the highest levels of Italian government. It is easy to write-off this and other Italian polizianis as cheap "rip-offs" of American films like "Dirty Harry" or "The French Connection". But this genre really resonated in Italy which was even more beset by rampant crime, high-level corruption, and would-be "revolutionaries" in 1970's than America was. And whereas American police thrillers got dumber, more simplistic, and sometimes downright fascist going into the Reagan era (i.e. "Make my day!", "Crime is a disease and he is the cure!"), the Italian films went off in a decidedly more morally ambiguous and often more cynical direction, which I personally find much more interesting. (It's perhaps understandable that America would later blunder into Iraq, convinced that they were the unambiguous "good guys" and weren't going to get any blood on their white cowboy hats, while the Europeans were generally much more wary and realistic).This movie is pretty confused. It's pretty hard to believe that corrupt law enforcement officials would be connected to the radical Marxist Red Brigades and vice versa. It's also hard to separate the "rogue cop" here from the regular Italian police, who also shoot unarmed suspects and kill innocent hostages in reckless high-speed car chases. (One villain makes the mistake of trying to ally himself with hero, naturally assuming that anyone so violent and unconcerned the law or public safety would be a natural partner in corruption).Still it is more realistic and honest in many ways to admit that fighting violence with violence, even it doesn't outright corrupt, is very messy and will leave you with hands that are far from clean. "Dirty Harry" and "The French Connection" themselves were much more noirish and morally ambiguous than is acknowledged these days. But what this movie really reminded me of was the first Dirty Harry sequel "Magnum Force" where the troubled vigilante cop with some morals faces off against vigilante cops with no morals (and who also turn out to be very implausibly connected to his most liberal critics). Like that movie this poliziani is pretty confused, but, at the same time, all the more honest for it.It's also well-made and very entertaining. It was directed by the great, and still underrated Italian director, Sergio Martino. It's currently only available on cheap DVD (part of "The Grindhouse Collection Volume 1") ported from a very messed-up videotape (the sound is atrocious). Still I would highly recommend it.