Palermo Milano solo andata (1995)

During an interrogation presided over by Judge Laurenti, Mafia pentito Marinnà named the seemingly aboveboard Turi Arcangelo Leofonte, nicknamed “the Mafia’s accountant” because of his ties to organized crime. It is decided to transfer Leofonte from Palermo to Milan to testify against the powerful boss Scalia, a member of the Corleonesi clan who does business with the Sacra Corona Unita. A police escort is assembled, led by the young but already experienced Commissioner Nino Di Venanzio and made up of officers Remo Matteotti, Tarcisio Proietti, Saro Ligresti, Paola Terenzi, Valerio Barreca, and Maria Pia Di Meo, all of them on their first assignment of this kind. The operation, codenamed “Ulysses,” involves picking up the Leofonte family from their home and taking them to the airport along the Palermo–Capaci–Cinisi–Punta Raisi Airport route. The team is divided into three units: the first consists of Nino Di Venanzio, Paola Terenzi, and Saro Ligresti, whose job is to escort Turi Arcangelo Leofonte; the second is made up of Valerio Barreca and Maria Pia Di Meo, and must escort Leofonte’s young son Nicola and his wife, Franca Gravina; the third consists of Remo Matteotti and Tarcisio Proietti, who are tasked with picking up Chiara, Leofonte’s seventeen-year-old daughter, from a party and escorting her to join the others. During the drive to the airport, the first two units, traveling together, are ambushed. Officers Barreca and Di Meo, along with Franca Leofonte and her son Nicola, are killed in a hail of bullets. Di Venanzio calls the third unit to tell his colleagues what has happened, gives them another place to meet, and orders them not to tell Chiara. He then calls Judge Laurenti and warns him that the units will escort the Leofonte family directly to Milan. On the very night Leofonte is contacted, an extremely violent prison feud breaks out, resulting in the deaths of thirteen pentiti, including Marinnà himself. Now no one is left to accuse Turi Leofonte, and he could therefore refuse to cooperate with the justice system. Later, through a ruse, Leofonte gets word by phone to one of the boss’s associates that he will avenge his wife and son’s deaths—not only by revealing all of Scalia’s secret dealings, but, above all, by swearing to spare only those who had no involvement, direct or otherwise, in the murders. During the journey, while they are in Apulia, Di Venanzio, in agreement with Judge Laurenti, decides to meet another escort detail at a restaurant. Saro Ligresti gets a call from Zangardi, the man he was supposed to meet, who tells him that he too has been attacked and that the people at the restaurant are actually hitmen. After a bloody shootout, Di Venanzio’s team manages to escape. Di Venanzio decides to continue the journey by train. During the overnight trip, Tarcisio and Chiara begin a very brief romance, sealed with a kiss. However, in shock after learning on the radio that her mother and brother are dead, Chiara tries to escape the next morning as soon as they reach the first railway station. After quickly catching up with Chiara and calming her down, the escort decides to continue the journey in two rented cars. During a stop at a service station along the highway, Tarcisio recognizes a man who had suspiciously been on the same train carriage as them the day before. A violent shootout breaks out, in which both the man and Tarcisio are killed. Later, Di Venanzio leaves one of the cars outside a hotel to deceive the surviving hitmen, while the team decides to reach Milan on a tour bus, which nevertheless gets stuck in traffic because of a carnival parade. At this point, Di Venanzio decides to get off the bus and continue on foot toward the courthouse. The entire team, armed to the teeth, sets off through the city streets, immediately drawing the attention of numerous groups of police officers and finance police, who join them along the way. The large escort crosses the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and Piazza del Duomo, watched in amazement by passersby, until it reaches Milan’s Palace of Justice. After exchanging a deep look with his daughter Chiara, Leofonte prepares to testify before the judge.