Before hitting the world stage with the beautiful if a little rose-tinted Cinema Paradiso, director Giuseppe Tornatore scored a hit in his native Italy
with this dark hearted tale of the Naples’ mob. It's a thousand miles away from the idyllic village life portrayed in his other movie and instead deals
with the easy violence and high level corruption of organized crime.
First, a word of warning: although actor Ben Gazzara is superb as The Professor, who was based on a real gang lord, his curly hair combined with
the accent given to him by the English re-dubbing makes him look and sound uncannily like Jewish stand-up comedian Jackie Mason. If you've
never heard Jackie then you'll be OK but for me this caused a few moments of unintended hilarity, particularly during one of the courtroom scenes.
The film deals with a man jailed for murdering a man who was hitting on his sister. Although deeply embroiled in the Camorra (Naples Mafia) from
childhood, he studied medicine in order to escape the inevitability of a life of crime. His plan failed and his is consigned to prison where he sets
about rising through the pecking order, forming a new mob as he goes. He starts to run business outside the walls of the prison, using his long
suffering sister as his go-between.
As he reaches the top of his game, he escapes from the mental institution he has been consigned to a takes his place at the head of a now
powerful organization. This is where the film really shifts up a gear as we are shown just how much corruption there is in every level of Naples
society, from the lowliest street hawker to the mayor and the governors, everyone is indebted to the Professor and his mob, to stand against him
is to die!
Of course this being a morality tale, his success can't last forever and with rival gangs and the law on his back, The Professor’s paranoia starts to
reach epic proportions, leading to a dramatic fall from grace and a slow slide into madness...
This film is expertly handed, with stellar performances throughout that shine through the sometimes unfortunate dubbing. The cinematography is
every bit as expert as Cinema Paradiso and the plot never lets up, with backstabbing associates and corrupt police officers at every turn ready to
get one over each other. It's one of those great mob movies where you just know everyone is going to die during the two and half hour running
time.
The level of violence is astonishing, with more stabbings than I think I've seen in a single film before. Mix in the usual car bombs and a truly bizarre
sequence in which a mobster’s nude wife is slowly lowered, screaming into a pit of quick lime, as well as another wife being gunned down in front
of her very young son and you've got yourself an unrelenting film that will appeal to exploitation fans as much as the art house crowd.
I'd put this up there with anything Scorsese has done, in fact there's a murder montage in the middle act that he could have stolen for Goodfellas
with great ease. Is it as good as The Godfather? Nearly...again it's that dodgy dub work that lessens its impact but I'm on a mission now to find an
Italian language version with subs!