The dense seventies, the Piazza Fontana massacre, the case Pinelli and more, end up in a movie that risks mixing chronicle and social criticism with the themes of poliziottesco.
A difficult balance to keep, for a movie that is difficult to understand for those who, like us, didn't see those years, but have only studied and / or seen on the big screen. In such cases, we like to read the archives of the newspapers and the reviews of the time trying to figure out how the society was in that moment and how the film was received. With "The Police Cannot Move" is a very interesting research, because Luciano Ercoli, died a couple of months ago, although he wasn’t a specialist of the genre, creates a series of tough reactions.

"La Stampa" a moderate newspaper, about this film wrote that it is "irrational" and that "it's not enough to end the story by saying that" The Police Can not Move""therefore can not act implying that politicians don’t want justice. A so important words hasn't value unless are supported by a solid movie. In fact, the characters are dummies, not characters. The acting is unsatisfactory ".
From the left "L'Unità" wrote much heavier words "The police groping in the dark, or rather lets out with unforgivable clumsiness several appointments with the culprits. The truth will never be offered to the protagonists of the film and the rest will not even be rewarded the patience of the viewer unexpectedly intrigued. Why? The death of ninety percent of the characters is called to ensure the virginity of the enigma, and we could only guess that the strategy of tension conceived from above has no color or immediate prospects. As it happens, however, the emissaries of terror are young drug addicts and offbeat prefer the democratic clothing. (...) Its vulgar intentions, however, does not seem supported by the necessary boldness and the hash fall in the incongruous ".
It's not easy to displease all and we regret not having found a review of a right-wing newspaper, but Ercoli succeeds in this "enviable" intent accusing the one hand the secret services diverted and on the other describing criminals as young drug addicts with long hair (some) that dress Parka. At the end is hard to say which side is this movie, perhaps the director sought a neutral path, following the smoky investigations of Piazza Fontana, putting in just the secret services and youth antagonists, forgetting, to tell the truth, the fascists (the real culprits) relegated to a joke "are fascists who put bombs" said by a passenger on a tram.
A work of an accusatory system state diverted, but does not hit remaining relegated to chapter, although a bit 'different from the usual, the poliziottesco.
Claudio Cassinelli is Commissioner Matteo Rolandi, a policeman less iron than other colleagues at poliziottesco, more ironic, perhaps disillusioned, that find himself in a hotel in Milan when a bomb explodes. An attack there is no doubt. His trusted collaborator Luigi Balsamo played by Franco Fabrizi, few hours after finds the suspected bomber. The next day, however, Balsamo is killed, thus initiating a series of strange events, of suspicious deaths that prevent the law to shed light on the incident. Rolandi slowly sniffs something and decide to handle investigations independently. At times a bit 'slow' this movie shows some moments of good direction and the usual excellent music by Stelvio Cipriani.