Fans of brawny, foreign-language policeman actioners in the Dirty Harry mold will likely spark to the 1978 Italian import Convoy Busters, the adrenalized tale of an ungovernable cop and the bloody swath of street justice he cuts under a Tuscan sun*.

Scripted by Gino Capone and Teodoro Agrimi, Convoy Busters centers around hardboiled cop Olmi (Violent Naples’
Maurizio Merli), who’s busted down a rank from the homicide division
after arresting a diamond smuggler with friends in high places. After
joining Rome’s emergency squad, Olmi’s extreme tactics make him a quick
enemy of both the mob and a press corps hungry for salacious stories.
After killing an innocent man whom he mistakes for an assassin, Olmi
finds himself bounced further down the occupational ladder, assigned to
a quiet beat on the Adriatic coast. There, he finds love in the arms of
a beautiful schoolteacher, Anna (Olga Karlatos). Naturally, however, a
peaceful and idyllic, sunset-filled ending isn’t in the cards for Olmi,
and when his newly found happiness is messed with, he crosses paths
with a gang of vicious gun runners.

The film’s director, the recently passed Stelvio Massi — who also
sometimes went by Stefano Catalano — was a hard-core genre devotee;
among the many titles to his credit as both a cinematographer and
director were Blood, Sweat and Fear, Highway Racer, Destruction Force and the Black Cobra films from the late 1980s. Convoy Busters
fits easily and comfortably into this canon as a robust tale of Italian
machismo; it’s the blueprint for everything Lorenzo Lamas ever tried
and about half of what Steven Seagal did as well. Merli is intense and
mustachioed, just the way you want your avenging angel cops, but the
movie also isn’t afraid to offer forth a few quirks.

Convoy Busters comes in a clear Amray case with a dual-sided
color sleeve, and is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen with matching
English and Italian Dolby digital mono audio tracks and, obviously,
optional English subtitles. A 20-page, full-color collectible booklet
offers up The De Falco Solution, an original graphic-novel
short story by Maurizio Rosenzweig and Diego Cajelli set in present-day
Milan but inspired by the ’70s ethos of the subgenre on display in the
feature. There are also, hearteningly, a nice slate of conversational
interviews anchoring the bonus material, including chats with the
namesake son of original star Merli, journalist Eolo Capacci, actor
Enio Girolami and directors Enzo Castellari and Ruggero Deodato, who
cite Convoy Busters as an influence. The movie’s original
theatrical trailer and a scrollable gallery of poster art and still
photographs round out the release. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

* Diane Lane not included.