The Tough Ones (1976 film)  The Tough Ones (, lit. "Rome at gunpoint") is a 1976 Italian "poliziottesco" film directed by Umberto Lenzi. Director Umberto Lenzi was offered a script titled "Roma ha un segreto" ("Rome Has a Secret"), a spy story set in the popular Roman district Trastevere. Lenzi felt that the script made no sense and trashed the script. He then asked the producer to make a film about the violence that was surrounding Rome at the time. Within a week, Lenzi improvised a script. "The Tough Ones" was released on February 25, 1976 in Italy, where it was distributed by Medusa Distribuzione. The film grossed 1,617,361,000 Italian lira. In the United States, the film was re-titled "Brutal Justice" and was released on the grindhouse circuit by Aquarius Releasing. For this version, Aquarius founder Terry Levene was responsible for replacing several establishing shots in the film with English-language counterparts filmed around New York City. A second version, also released on VHS, was released by Aquarius under the title "Assault with a Deadly Weapon", which featured a new title sequence featuring a skull-faced police officer and credits for non-existent cast and crew members. Roberto Curti criticized this version for being "badly-cut". "The Tough Ones" was released uncut and under its original English title on Blu-ray by Grindhouse Releasing in 2019.