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Super Fuzz
The Greatest Superhero Film You've Never Seen!
(review for 4colorreview)

The history of Italian cinema encompasses some of the greatest, most accomplished and most influential films ever created. From silent epics that rivaled, in spectacle and content, those of D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein to the post-World War II neo-realism movement that gave us such noted directors as Vittorio DeSicca and Roberto Rosselini to some of the true masters of 60s and 70s world cinema: Michaelangelo Antonioni, Frederico Fellini, Pier Pasolini, Sergio Leone, etc.

However, it's a little known fact that out of this creative, nourishing country that gave us the Roman empire, the Renaissance, the Mafia and the starchiest food imaginable, was created one of the greatest...no, THE greatest superhero film ever made: Super Fuzz. Forget Superman. Forget X-Men. Forget Superman II. Forget Batman Returns. Forget Unbreakable. Even forget Superman IV. Now remember the only name and the name only- Super Fuzz.

You may have heard whisperings in dark corners, behind your back and under flickering streetlights at dusk. You may even recall snippets of memory concerning it somewhere inside your clouded smatterings of childhood. A collected consciousness of digitally and politically suppressed sentient information has broken out of its encoded shell. Even Jason "Bah Humbug" Baldwin gave it a shout out. Now, the secret is out. And that secret, is Super Fuzz.

Nice guy cop Dave Speed (Terence Hill) is canoeing through the Florida Everglades in order to serve up a parking ticket. However, little does Dave know that where he's canoeing is right near NASA's testing ground. NASA thinks they've cleared everyone out of the area so they go ahead with the test. Dave's partner (Ernest Borgnine) tries to tell Dave to split, but to no avail. Dave is caught in the blast and dowsed with powerful and dangerous radiation.

As the sharper ones among you probably already guessed, Dave is blessed with superpowers after absorbing the radiation. Powers which include, but are apparently not limited to: telekinesis, the ability to see the future, running really really fast, manipulating time and space and, most importantly, the ability to make an obvious P.O.S. like Super Fuzz disturbingly entertaining.

The problem is that no one believes that Dave has powers. Not even Ernest Borgnine! Not even Dave's girlfriend, who isn't overwhelmingly pretty...but skanky-sexy enough to be a porn star! It seems that whenever Dave sees red, his powers turn off and red conveniently shows up whenever he tries to show his powers to someone he cares about. Dave's attempts to break a counterfeit ring fail and soon enough, our hero finds himself in the most overused comic book movie plot of all time. He's framed for crimes he didn't commit. And, as in most great Italian movies, Dave Speed dies an agonizing, useless, poetic and anonymous death, forcing the audience to rethink how they feel about the world and life in general. Well, actually, Super Fuzz escapes jail and rescues a frozen Ernest Borgnine from a sunken ship by blowing a giant bubble out of bubblegum and floating them both out of the ocean. YEAH!

The peculiarly accented Terence Hill, star of the "Trinity" series of spaghetti western parodies, mugs generously and a severely slumming Ernest Borgnine (somebody owed SOMEBODY a favor, eh?) overacts in every every EVERY single scene he's in. The best is imagining that Borgnine actually thought he was in a great movie ("Man, Super Fuzz is going to be HUGE! Condorman huge!"). Hey, at least he's trying. What it all adds up to is that rare crapfest that you can't take your eyes off of and a ludicrous night of nostalgic, inexplicable entertainment for idgits like myself.

Finally, Super Fuzz holds an interesting place in the canon of auteur director Sergio Corbucci in that it's maybe his only film. It's hard to believe after viewing Super Fuzz, but apparently there was no place in Hollywood for the esteemed talents of Mr. Corbucci. Maybe Hollywood just wasn't ready for Super Fuzz. Maybe Super Fuzz was just too ahead of its time. Maybe Super Fuzz scared Hollywood. Maybe Corbucci was just too damn good for Hollywood. Maybe it's because Super Fuzz looks like it was filmed in a parking lot or that it's about one step away from being a truly great porno. It could be any of those reasons. Sadly, we'll never know. Corbucci was chewed up and spit out by the Hollywood machine like so much fried calamari a la fusilli pesto.

Supah-Supaaah!