For the distortion pedal, see Univox Super Fuzz

Super Fuzz or Poliziotto superpiù (also called Super Snooper) is an Italian film about Dave Speed, a bumbling Miami police officer who gains super powers through accidental nuclear exposure. Directed by Sergio Corbucci

Sergio Corbucci

Sergio Corbucci was an Italian film director. He is best known for his very violent yet intelligent spaghetti westerns...

 and starring Terence Hill

Terence Hill

Terence Hill is an Italian actor. He is best known for starring in multiple action and western films together with his longtime filmpartner Bud Spencer.-Biography:...

 and Ernest Borgnine

Ernest Borgnine

Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...

, it was released in 1980.

Synopsis

The story starts as a retrospective plot, as young police officer Dave Speed (Terence Hill

Terence Hill

Terence Hill is an Italian actor. He is best known for starring in multiple action and western films together with his longtime filmpartner Bud Spencer.-Biography:...

) faces his fourth consecutive execution attempt (this time by the electric chair

Electric chair

Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

) for the alleged murder of his superior and friend, Sergeant Willy Dunlop (Ernest Borgnine

Ernest Borgnine

Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...

). While taking his last walk once more, Dave reminisces about how this all got started.

Coming fresh from the police academy

Police academy

A police academy is a training school for new police recruits, also known as a law enforcement academy.-Australia:Larger police departments usually run their own academies. States often run a centralised academy for training of personnel of law enforcement agencies within the state.Police...

, Dave is sent to deliver a parking ticket to the member of a tiny Indian

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 village in the Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 Everglades

Everglades

The Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...

. Unbeknownst to him, the U.S. government and the NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 preparing to conduct a secret radiation experiment in the area by firing a nuclear missile loaded with red plutonium

Plutonium

Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...

 into the landstrip where the village (which has long since been evacuated) is located. Dave, the only person in that particular area, is hit by the radiation but does not die, and returns to civilization. His tale of having him been close up to the explosion is marvelled at by most, but dismissed by Dunlop, who is a rather stubborn personality. Still, Dave sticks with him partly because he has a weakness for Dunlop's winsome niece, Evelyn (Julie Gordon).

As time passes, Dave discovers that somehow he has picked up a wide range of super powers, including super reflexes and speed, super endurance, telekinesis, precognition

Precognition

In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...

, hypnotism, and the ability to survive a window drop from the 23rd story of a building unscathed. What is more puzzling is that sometimes his powers suddenly fail to work whenever he sees the color red. But his powers, even with their limitation, come as an advantage when counterfeit

Counterfeit

To counterfeit means to illegally imitate something. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product...

 money is found throughout the city. The masterminds behind this scheme are a local businessman named Torpedo (Marc Lawrence

Marc Lawrence

Marc Lawrence was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. He has also been credited as F. A. Foss, Marc Laurence and Marc C...

) and his mistress Rosy Labouche (Joanne Dru

Joanne Dru

Joanne Dru was an American film and television actress, known for such films as Red River and All the King's Men.-Career:...

), a former actress on whom Dunlop has a serious crush. Right now, however, Dave is less a danger to them than an old retired magician named Silvius (Herb Goldstein), who had inadvertently discovered how Torpedo transports his counterfeit and now finds himself chased by Torpedo's henchmen. As it turns out, Silvius had also gained super powers the same way Dave did, and reveals his secret to the young policeman: Whenever he sees the color he saw at the explosion, his power is nullified for as long as he beholds it.

Dave reveals his secret to Dunlop and Evelyn, who react less than ecstatic about it: While Dunlop points out that Dave's precognitive abilities, which helped uncover Torpedo's scam, is unlikely to be admitted as evidence in court, Evelyn is not overjoyed at having a too-perfect man in the house. One night, Dave and Dunlop proceed to Torpedo's clubhouse, where Dave has Dunlop dance with Rosie (with some hypnotic encouragement) while he poses as a corrupt cop who wants a share of the winnings. By using his hypnotic powers on Torpedo, he gets the gangster to blab out the location of his printing facility: the fishing trawler Barracuda. But in the meantime, Dunlop inadvertently tells Rosie about Dave's powers and weaknesses in order to impress her.

Once the information is obtained, Dave and Dunlop proceed out to sea to find the Barracuda. Going aboard alone, Dunlop finds the printing press and the latest stash of dud money, but is knocked out by Torpedo's men, who lock him into a freezer and then sink the trawler to destroy the evidence. Upon his return to Police HQ, Dave is arrested following a trumped-up accusation by Rosie, who also makes sure that he keeps seeing something red to prevent his escape from prison, though she could not do so during the first three execution attempts.

Despite Rosie's last-ditch attempt to ensure Dave's demise by having a bouquet of red roses left in the electric chair room, Dave finally manages to escape prison and into the sea, where he promptly swims to the Barracuda. Once he finds Dunlop, alive but frozen stiff, aboard, he uses a borrowed bubblegum

Bubblegum

Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.-History:In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum,...

 to create a balloon, and both men rise out of the ocean and float back to the city. Having heard of Dave's escape, Torpedo and Rosie prepare to flee with Evelyn as their hostage. Dave manages to intercept them by jumping onto their Cessna

Cessna

The Cessna Aircraft Company is an airplane manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Their main products are general aviation aircraft. Although they are the most well known for their small, piston-powered aircraft, they also produce business jets. The company is a subsidiary...

 and redirecting it to an airfield where the police are already waiting. Finally convinced of the validity of Dave's powers, Dunlop overconfidently jumps off the balloon while Dave races to save him with Rosie's red Feather boa

Feather boa

A feather boa is a fashion accessory that is usually worn wrapped around the neck like a scarf.-Construction:A boa can be made of fur, but it is usually made instead from various types of feathers. Ostrich, marabou, chandelle, and turkey are the most common feathers used, although non-feather boas...

 wrapped around his legs. At the last instant, he manages to catch Dunlop (though in the process they wind up plunging through the earth and straight up to China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

), and both return safe and sound to prepare for Dave's and Evelyn's wedding. However, Evelyn, still reluctant to have a superman for a husband, has decided to have the last word in the matter by having her hair dyed red.