'Cadaveri Eccellenti' (1976) - Francesco Rosi.

Gifted director, Francesco Rosi masterfully helms this elegant, compelling and wonderfully stylish paranoid thriller that concerns the valiant investigations of Inspector Rogas(Lino Ventura) as he unearths some dark, unsettling truths in this particularly confounding case. Various high profile judges are being assassinated by a mysterious sniper, are these the crazed retributions of a lone, vengeance-seeking individual with a murderous grudge against these ageing magistrates, or, is this a vile political conspiracy of far-reaching consequence? 

The labyrinthine, never less than fascinating plot is deftly handled by Rosi, and one couldn't ask for a finer protagonist in the inimitable, enigmatically crumpled form of the always sublime Lino Ventura. A sterling performer whose magnificent CV boasts many star turns in some of France's finest crime epics, including some of the very best of, Jean-Pierre Melville, but his dogged interpretation of Stoic Inspector Rogas might arguably be one of Ventura's most exquisite performances. 'Cadaveri Eccellenti' (1976) remains a gripping, beautifully written, razor-sharp, rewardingly complex political thriller of the highest calibre, ranking alongside, Damiani's similarly layered 'How To Kill a Judge' (1974) as one of the most cogent conspiracy thrillers to come out of Italy in the 1970s.