El Pico S.A., 1980

starring: Terrence Hill, Ernest Borgnine, Joanne Dru and Marc Lawrence

directed by: Sergio Corbucci

the plot: Sgt. Willy Dunlop (Borgnine) sends rookie cop Dave Speed (Hill) out to a remote island village to collect money on a ticket. While Speed is on the island, an experimental rocket explodes overhead, covering him with the dust of red plutonium. Days later, Speed returns for duty and slowly discovers he has fantastic superpowers—the ability to fly, super-strength, X-ray vision, telekinesis and more. His only weakness: the color red. Dunlop doesn’t believe in his partner’s new abilities and tries to convince everyone around him that Speed is crazy. Once Speed starts using his powers to become a one-man crime-stopping force, however, Dunlop is forced to believe his friend. The two decide to take on arch-criminal Torpedo (Lawrence), who’s been running a counterfeit operation throughout town. Meanwhile, movie star Rosy LaBouche (Dru) is in town, and Dunlop is smitten. As Dunlop tries to get close to the screen idol, Speed tries to bring down the Torpedo. All his plans are for naught, though, when Speed finds himself framed for murder.

why it’s good: How unfunny can a comedy be? It’s a riddle “Super Fuzz” tries its hardest to answer, and the results are pretty terrible. You’d think a comedy about a cop with unexpected super-powers would be rife with slapstick and hilarity, but “Super Fuzz” ends up being flat and pretty boring. It’s an odd outcome, especially considering Hill’s reputation in Italy for his “Trinity” series of spaghetti-western-parodies and “Crime Busters,” the buddy-cop film he starred in before “Fuzz.” Hill is a likable enough leading man, but his screen presence doesn’t extend much beyond good looks. Any line he delivers comes out stilted and awkward, and his pratfall skills are passable, at best. That’s a lot better than Ernest Borgnine, however, whose idea of comedic acting seems to be yelling loudly at every possible moment. In fact, the only time Borgnine’s character isn’t yelling is when he’s stuck inside a sunken boat, inexplicably frozen, but not drowned. Most of the comedy lies in either a lame sight gag or Borgnine or some dumb crooks guffawing at Speed’s superpowers. The only thing “Fuzz” has going for it is an insanely catchy theme song with indecipherable lyrics. If you miss it during the opening credits, don’t worry—the song pipes up whenever Officer Speed uses his powers, which turns out to be quite often.

why you should own it: “Super Fuzz” is best left to fans of ’70s and ’80s Euro-trash cinema. Why “Fuzz” was such a cult hit is difficult to understand, but for all those “Fuzz” fanatics out there, DVD distributor Somerville House has released a new version of “Fuzz” and “Crime Busters,” complete with a decent-looking transfer and a smattering of special features.