|
|
One morning, John Lubbock (Maurizio Bonuglia) is found badly beaten up
in a tunnle, and it seems that the assailant wanted to kill him - and he
left a black glove at the scene of the crime. Reporter Andrea Bild (Franco
Nero) is on the case quickly, especially since he has partied with the
victim only the night before, plus knows those who found him. Not long
after that, a friend of Andrea's (Rosella Falk) is brutally murdered, and
another glove is found, with one finger missing - and Andrea lands on the
list of suspects, presently mainly because he can't produce an alibi. Of
course, that gets him to do even more research on the case - so much so
that his boss wants to relieve him of the story -, but then more murders
happen, and they're all somehow linked to Andrea, so much so that even he
can't deny he's the logical prime suspect, and only because he's friends
with the investigating inspector (Wolfgang Preiss) he stays out of jail -
but now he's really under pressure to solve the case, all the while being
sure that the killer's after him as well ... Ok, so if you want
to have a tightly and logically structured whodunnit, then you probably
not ought to watch The Fifth Cord, as it's a rather over-convoluted
murder mystery with a few too many subplots that lead to nowhere and the
killer being drawn out of the hat in the end ... but if a logically
structured thriller's your thing, then you might not be into giallo movies
to begin with, as even the top of the crop usually suffer from plotholes
and leaps of reason - and come out of it none the worse to be sure, as the
genre as such has always been more playing on emotions than the intellect.
And bearing that in mind, The Fifth Cord is a pretty good movie, it
features tension and suspense, action and violence in all the right
places, it's elegantly shot and directed, and the cast is most certainly
top notch. And while it might not be the best giallo ever, it's still well
worth a look not only for genre fans.
|
|
|