Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man

Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man - 1976 - Italy - Action/Exploitation

The Italians were some of my favorite film makers during the '70s and '80s, they broke the mold for video violence.  To quote the godfather of gore Lucio Fulci "Violence is an Italian art."   This one is made by Infamous Italian director Ruggero Deodato, who is known for making some of the most shockingly violent and controversial films available, such as the relentlessy brutal and widely banned Cannibal Holocaust.

This flick starts off with a bang, with a highly impressive and kick ass motorcycle chase, including some pretty daring stunts.  The chase looked immensely dangerous to shoot, especially considering it was done in downtown Rome with apparently no permits from the city or permission of any kind.  That's guerrilla film making at its best, folks.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is essentially just a violent buddy cop movie.  Think of them as Starsky and Hutch only with little regard for human life, and getting around on a motorcycles instead of a Gran Torino.  These two cops kill criminals without much hesitation, much to the dismay of their superior officer.

The two cops, Fred and Tony, make a pretty good team.  They are employed as a "special force" tasked with taking down criminal organizations.  Not only do these two ride the same motorcycle and take down baddies together, they happen to fancy the same women a couple times as well.

Despite this film being often coined as "ultra violent", its a little tame by today's standards.  Certainly for this time period the kind of ruthless and emotionless killing perpetrated by these police was rarely seen in action movies, but today it's not all that shocking to tell you the truth.  I wouldn't classify the flick as soft or anything, there's a few hard to watch torture scenes and a head turning eye gouging, as well as some good shoot-outs, but compared to Deodato's later flicks it's nothing.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is an entertaining 70's shoot 'em up with a great funky 70's soundtrack, and most likely had a good amount of influence on later cop movies despite it being little known by the general public. (Quentin Tarantino is a fan of this one, and references it in one of his films)  If you like these kinda European 70's exploitation flicks you may find yourself enjoying this one a good deal, give it a watch.

Plot - 6.5/10
Action - 6.5/10
Blood n' Guts - 2/10
Violence - 7/10
Acting - 7.5/10
OVERALL - 7/10

Some daring stunts

Comin' through!

A hostage situation.

Fred blasts through a window on his hog and takes some dudes out.

Tony assassinates in broad daylight

The boys ride out.