This Italian mob movie isn’t as flashy or romanticized as many American gangster pictures are, but the films gritty and real life feel give the picture an extra weight and tension that you never know what is going to happen.
Opening with a set of hits that sets off a civil war among gangs, we follow a group of individuals that fall on both sides of the battle, young up and comers, a seemingly innocent bystander in the process, and a pair of rouge crooks reeking havoc for one bosses territory. As things progress through the film things slowly get worse and worse for those involved with the old establishment and lines are drawn with deaths tolls ratcheting up higher and higher as people grasp for power. Some of the characters we follow are the money handler who doles out weekly payments for the old time establishment, a young man who is being pulled into the crime working for an entrepreneur who deals with disposing toxic waste in neighborhoods back yards, a excellent tailor who’s employer gets him into unforeseen trouble in the competitive fashion production industry, a mother who must deal with the heat of her son sticking with the established crime bosses, and a pair of small time crooks who think they are hot shit and live life as if they were Tony Montana. The characters run the gauntlet of all the classes and people that are affected by crime whether directly involved or associated by proxy. That is the films real achievement, in showing how crime can affect anyone when things get this bad and as the final facts scroll across the screen the directors have achieved their message. [Read more...]