Top detective Lou Torrey is transferred to Los Angeles and uncovers a plot by a Sicilian mafioso to use Vietnam veterans to murder all his enemies in a rerun of the "Sicilian Vespers" when the previous generation of Sicilian mafiosi were all killed on a single day. Torrey gets various clues that something big is about to happen but will he discover what is planned before the big day ?

[last lines]

[Torrey and Sergeant, in car, outside church]


Sergeant:
Nothing changes, only the names.


Detective Lt. Lou Torrey:
You gotta be kidding. We're chest deep in water. Screaming against the rushing tide.

[Vescari goes into confessional in church, having organized murder of other Dons]


Don Alberto Vescari:
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I haven't been to confession for ten days... I lose my temper

[in car]


Detective Lt. Lou Torrey:
You know, last three weeks, in New York City alone, there were 159 homicides?

[in confessional]


Don Alberto Vescari:
I don't mean to be harsh, but I struck my son in anger last Tuesday.


Detective Lt. Lou Torrey:
3,000 criminal assaults, 6,000 robberies.


Don Alberto Vescari:
Ruth, my wife, bless her, I swore at her.


Detective Lt. Lou Torrey:
You multiply that by Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles.


Don Alberto Vescari:
For these, and all the other sins which I cannot remember, forgive me.


Detective Lt. Lou Torrey:
You remember that cartoon of an old Roman Circus, where all the lions are roaring, and the page boy yells down the corridor...

[to camera]


Detective Lt. Lou Torrey:
You've got five minutes, Christians.

Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: When Lawrence and his men burst into the meeting room and begin machine-gunning the assembled dons, as Mossman and the don next to him fall dead, the same shot of Vechetti getting riddled with bullets and falling down can be seen next to them just prior to the single shot of him getting shot. Also, though we see at least four consecutive shots of different dons getting shot, four men with automatic weapons shooting at the same time and direction would surely mean all the dons would have been hit around the same time.