Milano Palermo - Il ritorno (2007)

After eleven years in prison, mafia accountant Turi Arcangelo Leofonte is about to be released. Thanks to his confessions, nearly all the members of the Scalia clan have been arrested (they massacred almost his entire family, sparing only his daughter Chiara), and he must now be escorted abroad to a secret location where he will spend the rest of his life under a new identity. It emerges that during those eleven years, officers Ligresti and Terenzi, members of the police team that brought Leofonte to Milan to testify, lost their lives trying to protect Chiara. The same fate befell Francesco Vinci, a police officer and the best friend of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Nino Di Venanzio, as well as Chiara’s husband and the father of her two children. After his friend’s death, Nino grew very close to Chiara and confesses the danger she is in: with her father’s release, the woman and her children are no longer under protection. The old Sicilian boss is dead, but his son Rocco wants revenge for his clan and to get Leofonte’s money. The team is brought back together: joining Di Venanzio are, among others, Chief Inspector Remo Matteotti and Libero, Tarcisio’s brother, who was determined to join the police against Remo’s wishes in order to avenge his brother’s murder in the first film. At the Montecatini thermal baths, Chiara and her children join the team to persuade her father to return the money taken from the Scalia clan, without Nino’s knowledge. Father and daughter see each other again after a long time. The accountant conceals his accounts behind an extremely complicated password, which is nevertheless easily understood by his little grandson Stefano, who has autism but is able to grasp complex mathematical puzzles. Leofonte therefore entrusts his grandson with the key to access the vast bank records, but the ruthless Rocco Scalia has organized a large-scale attack: in a bloody shootout, the boy is kidnapped, his mother Chiara is gravely wounded, and several officers are killed. Scalia promises over the phone to free the child in exchange for Leofonte, and keeps in touch with Nino to negotiate the exchange. Besides Di Venanzio, only Remo, Libero (who has reached Montecatini by motorcycle after Remo left him behind, fearing he might meet the same fate as Tarcisio), Giorgio Zampagna, and Elda Fiore have survived from the escort. Together, they set off in pursuit of Scalia and his men. Little Stefano is taken to Sicily, to the countryside around Roccanivora, once the estate of the fearsome Salvatore Scalia. Watching over him are Rosaria, a young woman fanatically devoted to the clan, and her young son Tony, who has a gun and is waiting for the boss’s order to commit his first murder and thus enter the family. Meanwhile, Scalia ambushes Nino’s team at an old tollbooth: his men are killed, and Rocco orders the policeman to leave his team behind. Fearing for his people’s lives, Nino makes the boss believe he is alone and orders Remo to turn back with the rest of the group, but Remo soon catches up with him. At the port in Palermo, the exchange turns out to be a trap: Scalia has not only got the boy, but also manages to take Leofonte. The rest of the team intervenes, forcing the boss to flee after a wild chase on a motorcycle that Libero, left behind once again, had stolen in order to rejoin the group. It had meanwhile emerged that magistrate Maria Avezzano had been bribed by Rocco Scalia and was giving the mafiosi all the details of the team’s movements. The mafia group then takes its prisoner to Rosaria’s country home, where Tony and Stefano are also staying. Leofonte enters the password into the accounts on the computer—it will turn out to be false—in exchange for his grandson, but once again Rocco Scalia breaks his promise and orders Tony to kill Stefano. However, events over the past few days have made Rosaria’s son and Stefano friends. With neither the courage to shoot him nor any desire to obey Scalia, Tony fires a shot into the air. Furious, Scalia takes it out on Rosaria and shoots her in the head in revenge, then turns his gun on Stefano. Di Venanzio and his men, who have followed him in secret, intervene immediately, and a terrible shootout begins. Leofonte tries to take advantage of the chaos by hurling himself at Scalia, who shoots him, but before long the boss and his men are losing. The battle ends with Nino killing Scalia. Mortally wounded, Leofonte tells Nino that he gave Scalia a false code, and before dying entrusts the password to Stefano. He also learns that Chiara is now out of danger. Nino is reunited with Stefano, who finally accepts him as his father.