Underwhelming curio

Italian/French/West German co-production, directed by Riccardo Freda, and starring Anton Diffring, Luigi Pistilli, and Dagmar Lassander. When two women connected with the Swiss Ambassador to Ireland (Diffring) are found murdered in Dublin, the police investigation is hampered by the Ambassador invoking his right of Diplomatic Immunity. To try to get round this the senior investigating officer unofficially recruits the services of retired 'loose cannon' cop John Norton (Pistilli). But as Norton attempts to unravel the truth (including forming a romantic relationship with the Ambassador's daughter (Lassander)) there are further murders which hint at the possibility of more than one killer and more than one hidden agenda.

Unusually, this giallo is largely set in Dublin. Even more unusually, it was actually filmed there. Anyone who's visited the Republic of Ireland knows it has spectacular coastal scenery, and the movie certainly makes use of that. The cast are pretty good (Diffring is his usual excellent, cold, condescending b@stard) and the basic idea is okay. The drawback is that the finer details are confusing as hell (I watched a video essay on the film afterwards and was relieved to see I'm not the only one who thinks so). It really is a tangled mess. Even when all is revealed at the end (largely by way of an exposition dump from Diffring), it's still a muddle. In fact Freda was so unhappy with the finished film he had his name replaced with the pseudonym 'Willy Pareto' (Freda also apparently wanted Roger Moore for the detective role; I really don't see any way Moore would have taken this).

The unusual setting and Diffring make this worth at least one watch (I don't see me ever revisiting it). There's a fair bit of blood and gore, violence and nudity. 5.5/10.