Romanzo Criminale, or Crime Novel in English, reminded me of recent Scorsese film The Departed; a film that's fast, smooth, slick and glamorous but knows where it stands on the line that on one side actually contains glamorisation. I may not be overly familiar with the bulk of the cannon that is Italian crime cinema, but Crime Novel seems to want to appeal to the broadest possible audience; there is a showy sense of colour and energy, a feeling of the broad and of the epic when, in personal terms, low-grade and gritty content always works best for me. I think Crime Novel has the necessary characters to tell a 'proper' crime story what with prostitutes, petty thugs, drug dealers and kidnappers but it remembers all too often to 'have fun' with its subject matter. Had the characters been slightly less-believable and more akin to something from a Guy Ritchie attempt, the 'clash' I felt was there might not have been.
Regardless, and despite this wavering sense in relation to content, the film feels good enough to warrant a pretty strong recommendation; and film that doesn't necessarily know its foundations but knows exactly where it wants to go when it's off and running. The film covers a number of petty Italian criminals throughout the 1970s and briefly onwards from there. They are Ice, Lebanese and Dandy; three kids that come of age in the 1960s when they steal a car, briefly avoid the police and then see their fourth friend die as one of them is arrested and jailed. The film gets across the direction the makers will take it down very early on and in some style, introducing the leads in a flashy and sexy manner; many will have issues with young 'gangsters' inhabiting the screen with their 'cool' nick-names such as 'Ice' and so forth. Crime Novel carries the same tone as, and certainly takes inspiration from, pieces like City of God and any Guy Ritiche venture into this genre, but it does fall short of those examples.
It's oddly symbolic that a kidnapping of a certain someone would act as the launching of the soon to be enlarged group; it signifies a taking of something for personal gain, a swiping of a person that gives them the opportunity to swipe the city for themselves. These guys party hard by night in a carefree and obnoxious manner, they stab people by day; something the film wants us to understand very early on when that sense of juxtaposition is apparent as is a feeling of low-level crime, a sense that these people are not afraid of what they do and may well inhabit public spaces, continue with whatever it is they enjoy and might well be never more than a few yards away from you.
The film lays its goals down in a pretty clear cut fashion when the leader of this rising group makes reference to the Roman empire, he wants something large; powerful and something to be feared as the result of all this. The notion is in debt more toward American crime films of old, Scarface and The Godfather in particular as this study of the hierarchy is set up. But Crime Novel doesn't want to be about one man as much as it does rather a few. Throughout the duration of the picture, characters will fall in love; speak of eloping; aid in the taking over of entire drug empires and go on journeys of psychological paranoia while law enforcers around them go on an ever-escalating pursuit of these criminals, that see themselves dice with temptation and death mere scenes apart. The film even takes time to incorporate Italy's 1982 World Cup win.
So you've got a lot going on. The film doesn't hang about, and I don't think it really cares whether we connect with all of the characters in the piece, just so long as our attention is drawn to one or two. What acts as an interesting element to all of this is the character of Patrizia (Mouglalis), the prostitute and lone female figure amidst this male dominated world and genre. The sexual tension between her and leading law-enforcer Scialoja (Accorsi), which is displayed in certain scenes, comes across as something out of another film entirely – the odd thing is, most of these scenes are more interesting than most others as a sort of side-show of lust and temptation, always drawing you into the criminal world. The character of Patrizia, I suppose, acts as a bridge between them; those being 'right' and 'wrong'.
If most scenes in the film are raw and enjoy the 'in-your-face' delivery, then the scenes Scialoja and Patrizia share carry a certain amount of slow burning energy that the others lack. If the performances of Mouglalis and Accorsi are impressive, it's because they have something raw enough to work with, which is slightly more than the rest of the cast can really lay claim to. Importantly, Crime Novel isn't a glorification. By the end, the film has gone so far that it thinks it can branch off into a revenge tale, and given its sheer energy and ruthlessness in telling a sprawling crime piece, it sort of earns the right if the priorities are correct – which they are. Made with energy and a fair amount of efficiency, Romanzo Criminale delivers without romancing criminals, too much.
Regardless, and despite this wavering sense in relation to content, the film feels good enough to warrant a pretty strong recommendation; and film that doesn't necessarily know its foundations but knows exactly where it wants to go when it's off and running. The film covers a number of petty Italian criminals throughout the 1970s and briefly onwards from there. They are Ice, Lebanese and Dandy; three kids that come of age in the 1960s when they steal a car, briefly avoid the police and then see their fourth friend die as one of them is arrested and jailed. The film gets across the direction the makers will take it down very early on and in some style, introducing the leads in a flashy and sexy manner; many will have issues with young 'gangsters' inhabiting the screen with their 'cool' nick-names such as 'Ice' and so forth. Crime Novel carries the same tone as, and certainly takes inspiration from, pieces like City of God and any Guy Ritiche venture into this genre, but it does fall short of those examples.
It's oddly symbolic that a kidnapping of a certain someone would act as the launching of the soon to be enlarged group; it signifies a taking of something for personal gain, a swiping of a person that gives them the opportunity to swipe the city for themselves. These guys party hard by night in a carefree and obnoxious manner, they stab people by day; something the film wants us to understand very early on when that sense of juxtaposition is apparent as is a feeling of low-level crime, a sense that these people are not afraid of what they do and may well inhabit public spaces, continue with whatever it is they enjoy and might well be never more than a few yards away from you.
The film lays its goals down in a pretty clear cut fashion when the leader of this rising group makes reference to the Roman empire, he wants something large; powerful and something to be feared as the result of all this. The notion is in debt more toward American crime films of old, Scarface and The Godfather in particular as this study of the hierarchy is set up. But Crime Novel doesn't want to be about one man as much as it does rather a few. Throughout the duration of the picture, characters will fall in love; speak of eloping; aid in the taking over of entire drug empires and go on journeys of psychological paranoia while law enforcers around them go on an ever-escalating pursuit of these criminals, that see themselves dice with temptation and death mere scenes apart. The film even takes time to incorporate Italy's 1982 World Cup win.
So you've got a lot going on. The film doesn't hang about, and I don't think it really cares whether we connect with all of the characters in the piece, just so long as our attention is drawn to one or two. What acts as an interesting element to all of this is the character of Patrizia (Mouglalis), the prostitute and lone female figure amidst this male dominated world and genre. The sexual tension between her and leading law-enforcer Scialoja (Accorsi), which is displayed in certain scenes, comes across as something out of another film entirely – the odd thing is, most of these scenes are more interesting than most others as a sort of side-show of lust and temptation, always drawing you into the criminal world. The character of Patrizia, I suppose, acts as a bridge between them; those being 'right' and 'wrong'.
If most scenes in the film are raw and enjoy the 'in-your-face' delivery, then the scenes Scialoja and Patrizia share carry a certain amount of slow burning energy that the others lack. If the performances of Mouglalis and Accorsi are impressive, it's because they have something raw enough to work with, which is slightly more than the rest of the cast can really lay claim to. Importantly, Crime Novel isn't a glorification. By the end, the film has gone so far that it thinks it can branch off into a revenge tale, and given its sheer energy and ruthlessness in telling a sprawling crime piece, it sort of earns the right if the priorities are correct – which they are. Made with energy and a fair amount of efficiency, Romanzo Criminale delivers without romancing criminals, too much.