terrible... so disappointed.

People are voting emotionally.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The best work of Francesco Rosi. One of the most thought provoking political thrillers that is even better than Costa-Gavras' "Z." There is a killing sequence (of the von Sydow character) where Rosi has evidently been influenced by Visconti's "Conversation piece" (74) opening credit sequence (death of the Lancaster character).

Just a couple of additional points - The first assassination victim is Charles Vanel (Tre Fratelli) but also from Wages of Fear (with Montand) as a far younger man.The opening sequence as he emerges from the tombs to the killing in a garden is arguably one of the strongest openings to a film ever. Rosi (an AD to Visconti) is known for this, check out his opening sequence to his "Carmen" (Placido Domingo).On a political note, being a leftist/communist in Italy in the 60s/70s was more accurately being an anti-fascist. Many of the rich claimed to be communists. Lina Wertmuller built a career making fun of this social and political confusion.Wish Illustrious Corpses were available here on DVD!!!

Director Francesco Rosi calls ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES "a trip through the monsters and monstrosities of power." It is a detective thriller with the format of a political expose and deals with an unseen killer whose victims are judges, public prosecutors and magistrates. Viewers who have seen Rosi's THREE BROTHERS remember that one of the episodes in that film deals with a magistrate has a nightmare in which he envisions his own murder my terrorists. In ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES Rosi elevates the crime of assassination to a cataclysmic dimension within which a modern industrial society is dragged to the brink of collapse. It is a structurally elliptical but harrowing picture of the weaknesses in social foundations and the fragility of all government. The country the movie is set in is unspecified although it clearly seems to be Italy. Yet the film is unspecific enough to represent any nation portrayed as being on the brink of anarchy. The eerie opening is set in Palermo's Convento dei Cappuccini with its crypt of 8000 bodies, some mummified, some rotting in subterranean corridors. Rosi turns those images into a horrific metaphor of political and social transience that are the themes of this movie. In the final sequence, oceans of banner-waving Communists are cut with noisily revving tanks being readied for a rightist takeover of power. One should observe that Rosi's left-wing political biases admit only of right-wing coups as being ominous. Nevertheless, it is an unsettling finale to a remarkable and unsettling film.

What more can be said? This is one of the finest examples of Italian cinema I have seen. Gripping, intense and thought provoking. Not to mention fantastically acted, directed, edited, shot and produced.The story revolves around Lino Ventura, Italy's No.1 homicide detective. He is called in onto the case of an assassinated judge and has to piece it together. As the movie proceeds more judges are killed by an unknown party....What makes this movie shine more than anything is the plot, it's thicker than cement. When you think you have your finger pointed in the right direction, something else pops up and leads you in yet another direction... FANTASTIC!!!