I can say that I have not seen a Deodato movie that I haven't liked. I enjoy his style and the way he takes on each 'genre' rather than just taking on a script or a film.With "Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man" he really tackled the Italian cop/crime thriller genre head-on and makes no apologies. These guys shoot first and put the handcuffs on later. They are competing with each other the whole film over who's gonna get the chicks. It's hilarious and bad ass all at the same time.Written by Fernando Di Leo (Fulci's "Massacre Time") and brilliantly acted and directed, it's hard to find anything wrong here. Euro-sleaze buffs can safely purchase this one for the collection.8 out of 10, kids.

Considering Italian directors' penchant for ripping off popular American films, it took Ruggero Deodato an age to cash in on Dirty Harry! But, he did eventually get round to it; and Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is the result. Ruggero Deodato would become famous for his pair of violent cannibal films, Jungle Holocaust and Cannibal Holocaust, and while this flick is nowhere near as shocking as those two, it's still bears Deodato's touch as it's a shade nastier than a lot of the cop films released in Italy circa 1971 (though still not as nasty as Umberto Lenzi's milestone, Almost Human). However, despite its nasty edge; Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man lacks a certain something, and I certainly won't be naming it as one of the best films of it's type. The plot focuses on a couple of maverick policemen; Fred and Tony, who are members of the 'special squad', a department of the police. They have a licence to kill and aren't afraid to use it, and most of the film basically follows our trigger happy cops around as they blow everyone away.One thing I love about Italian films from the seventies is the titles! This one is particularly good, as it takes a swipe at coppers by stating that 'cops' and 'men' are different things... The central characters were obviously intended to be gritty scene-stealers along the same lines as Tomas Milian in a lot of Lenzi's crime films; but unfortunately, they both come off as rather ridiculous. They're barely cops at all (the story would have been better and made more sense if they were vigilantes), and they're both too young for this 'special squad' status - it never really washes. Furthermore, neither Marc Porel nor Ray Lovelock manages to put in a decent performance. The film isn't a complete loss mostly thanks to Ruggero Deodato's handling. The action scenes are brash and exciting, and Deodato does manage to implement a few standout scenes amongst a fair bit of tedium. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really end on a high either, and while there are a lot worse films than this out there in the Italian cop genre - there are a lot of better ones too. This film is not a dead loss, but it's not really recommended either.

LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN (Ruggero Deodato - Italy 1976).Despite its almost cartoonish violence, Ruggero Deodato really kept pushing boundaries for extreme violence and sadism with this piece of nihilistic mayhem. Alfredo (Marc Porel) and Antonio (Ray Lovelock) are two policemen belonging to a special anti-crime unit who are given carte-blanche in their actions against organized crime in Rome. Their working methods are of the "shoot first, ask questions later" kind, and their daily routines consists of killing just about everybody before they even committed the crime. The film kicks off with an exciting motorbike chase during rush hour through the streets of Rome, during which a blind man's guide dog is casually run over by our two heroes. At the end of the chase, one of the badly hurt criminals is put out of his misery when Antonio snaps his neck before the other police officers arrive. During an inquiring visit to a villa on the edge of Rome where apparently the top bosses have gathered, they knock out some bodyguards, and - instead of arresting them - set the whole car park on fire, before going home to their shared apartment and smoke another packet of cigarettes. All this violence is delivered in such a casual tone, I can imagine this will offset most viewers. Personally, I don't see that much trouble since no person in the film is anything more than a cardboard character and the film never rises above the level of comic-book theatrics. And hey, what else can you expect from Italian crime thrillers? Generally, our two cop buddies lead the life every testosterone-driven man dreams off, which is setting cars on fire, shoot their guns and, between crime-fighting, chase women all day.Alfredo and Antonio have a bit of an odd living situation. Apparently, they are such close buddies, they live together in the same apartment. They even share the same room and they also share the same motorcycle. In fact, they never seem to do anything on their own. The original story hinted at this hidden homosexual component between the two men, but in the film it's subdued, since Alfredo and Antonio's behaviour is all raging heterosexuality and they chase everything female that moves.Also, the first thing that springs to mind when watching this is the TV-show "Starsky and Hutch." Two cops, one blonde, one black-haired roaming the streets, but the show hadn't aired yet in Italy at the time the film was being made. Even if it was pure coincidence, the resemblance is obvious, although Alfredo and Antonio's methods are admittedly a little more extreme than their American counterparts. In an interview Ray Lovelock mentions the resemblance, but he can only speculate if the two main characters were influenced by "Starsky and Hutch." So far, Deodato keeps his mouth shut about the issue.And pay attention to the scenes where the men ride the motorcycle together. Marc Porel is driving while Ray Lovelock is sitting behind him and constantly looks from left to right in ridiculous fashion (Deodato's instructed this because the camera was in front of the two men and it was the only way Lovelock could be caught on camera). The story goes that Porel blocked Lovelock from the camera on purpose and that this little incident was the main reason the two actors didn't get along and the much awaited sequel was never made.Camera Obscura --- 6/10

This one really pushes the envelope on "ends justify the means" police tactics, even compared to the other Italian cop-thrillers I've seen. The two protagonists are cops who belong to an "anti-gang" squad...that means, in this case, that they actually act like gangsters. They're nihilistic, sexist a-holes. They like blowing things up for fun. They shoot criminals BEFORE they commit crimes. A gangster wants them out of the picture and has one of their colleagues shot; from there on, they actively engage in gang warfare. That's the plot.The dialog is not at all clever. The premise is set up lazily and has no authenticity to it. The musical score is light-weight, typical 70's cop-thriller fare.It's consistently entertaining, however. Whether laughing out loud or gasping in shock, I was never bored. There's plenty of eye-popping violence on a level with "Violent Naples" to satisfy fans in that department. The ending is very abrupt, surprising, and cool; it gives the whole rest of the movie a darker tone.I definitely recommend it to fans of violent, Italian cop-thrillers from the 1970's, or any violent cop-thrillers from the 1970's, or good, trashy movies in general.