The Heroin Busters

Original title: La via della droga

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

981

YOUR RATING

An Italian policeman goes undercover to break up an international heroin smuggling ring and butts heads with a hot-tempered Interpol agent assigned by his agency to do the same task.

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Action Crime Thriller

An Italian policeman goes undercover to break up an international heroin smuggling ring, and butts heads with a hot-tempered Interpol agent assigned to the same task.An Italian policeman goes undercover to break up an international heroin smuggling ring, and butts heads with a hot-tempered Interpol agent assigned to the same task.An Italian policeman goes undercover to break up an international heroin smuggling ring, and butts heads with a hot-tempered Interpol agent assigned to the same task.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

981

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
An abandoned spaghetti factory was used as a location for one of the shoot-outs in this film.

Goofs
In the last long action sequence, Fabio pulls a clip from his pocket to reload an automatic. There's no reason he would have had that. He started the encounter with a revolver, dropped it and snatched the automatic from a bad guy.

Quotes
Hamilton: Sit down.
Fabio: Yes, Sir
Hamilton: Alright, so who do you work for and who were you bringing the stuff to?
Fabio: Why do you guys choose a place like this? It's so depressing here.
Hamilton: I don't have any time to waste so I'm going to ask you the question again; who do you work for and who were you bringing the stuff to?
Fabio: Whom do you work for. Whom. Nobody. I work for me.
Hamilton: Three kilos?
Fabio: I thought I'd stock up. They told me this stuff was kinda hard to find in Rome. You know, the police, they're so smart.
Hamilton: Yes. They're also good-natured, cultured, patient, and they're all-enduring. So we'll start again. Now, who, whom do you work for? And whom were you bringing the stuff to?
Fabio: I told you; it was for my personal use.
Hamilton: [hitting him and grabbing him by the collar] You defiant, little bastard. Now, you listen to me: I'm quite sure you don't want to end up in one of our jails any more than the next man and I can tell you it's absolute hell in there. Now, you're officially free. You saw me sign that paper. As a matter of fact, you don't even exist. You never have. But you believe me, if you don't decide to talk, I will make it my personal business to see you don't leave here alive. You understand me?

Connections
Featured in Ultimate Poliziotteschi Trailer Shoot-Out (2017)

User reviews24

Review

Featured review

8/10

"Freeze, luvvies! I mean...you filthy slags"

You can always rely on Enzo Castellari to knock things up a notch, and even though he had me worried (and a little confused) at the pacing of this one, it all leads up to major kick ass ending.

After the film seemingly randomly shifts between Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Colombia and New York, the film finally settles in Rome, as we see Fabio Testi getting busted for carrying drugs into the country. At the same time and in the same place, another guy who's just arrived from Amsterdam is tailed by cop David Hemmings, who gets duped by the dealers as big old Romano Puppo gets away with the goods.

Yep, Hemmings is hot headed, potty-mouthed cop out to take down a huge drug cartel, and he's the only guy who knows that Fabio Testi is an undercover cop. Things get pretty difficult for Testi as he works his way into the dealer's trust via a junky guy with his own sub plot, and nothing ends up going to plan as everything results in a huge chase at the end that uses feet, motorbikes, and finally, planes. I think there's a deep meaning to all this, and that is "If you deal drugs, Fabio Testi will shoot you."

You've got the usual Enzo back up crew here: Massimo Vanni (who does his 'riding a bike downstairs' bit), Joshua Sinclair as a suave dealer, Romano Puppo as another dealer, and even Enzo himself turns up to mug for the camera. Sherry Buchanan turns up as the junky guy's girlfriend, but she really just turns up to be naked for a minute or two.

I found it strange that there's an obvious stunt double doing even the most routine of stunts for Fabio, but then it's Fabio himself doing all that crazy crap with the planes later. I did burst out laughing when a guy pulled a particularly strange face when getting shot in slow motion.

It does seem however that Enzo is kind of making some sort of comment about the hippy life being dead and leading to horrible addiction, because the drug taking here is shown in all its glory and when you see a guy licking spilled heroin from a toilet seat, it doesn't exactly entice you to go take the stuff. Well done Enzo!