I agree with all of the panegyrics, so I'll only point out the one thing that everyone seems to be missing (and it's not hard to do, given how mesmerizing the movie is) and which "ruined it" for me.
One of the pivotal morals of the story, its leitmotif, is the now famous line "The saddest thing in life is a wasted talent". It appears at the beginning, throughout, and again at the end. It's practically the closing line.
Yet we never see the MANIFESTATION of said talent in Calogero. What's he talented in? School? Baseball? Italian cuisine? We never get even the slightest indication of what that line might refer to when it comes to our protagonist.
In my opinion, if such an important (if not THE most important) aspect of the movie had been "anchored" in something concrete (if we'd seen Calogero excel in baseball, school, whatever), the movie might have packed a stronger punch. Calogero leaves his mafia ways, having finally realized what his father has been talking about all along - that there's nothing sadder than a wasted talent.
But we never see what Calogero's talent is!
That's why the oft-repeated wasted-talent moral seems to be left hanging in mid-air without any concrete point of reference. It might as well have been replaced with "Take your vitamins daily". It's no more than an abstract wise saying. And that's why this movie hits the home run, but there's no bases on the field.
Or something.
One of the pivotal morals of the story, its leitmotif, is the now famous line "The saddest thing in life is a wasted talent". It appears at the beginning, throughout, and again at the end. It's practically the closing line.
Yet we never see the MANIFESTATION of said talent in Calogero. What's he talented in? School? Baseball? Italian cuisine? We never get even the slightest indication of what that line might refer to when it comes to our protagonist.
In my opinion, if such an important (if not THE most important) aspect of the movie had been "anchored" in something concrete (if we'd seen Calogero excel in baseball, school, whatever), the movie might have packed a stronger punch. Calogero leaves his mafia ways, having finally realized what his father has been talking about all along - that there's nothing sadder than a wasted talent.
But we never see what Calogero's talent is!
That's why the oft-repeated wasted-talent moral seems to be left hanging in mid-air without any concrete point of reference. It might as well have been replaced with "Take your vitamins daily". It's no more than an abstract wise saying. And that's why this movie hits the home run, but there's no bases on the field.
Or something.