Il Ladro Onesto

Love 'Inspector Montalbano' and feel that it does a great job bringing freshness to a well-worn genre (not intended as a bad thing, love crime/mystery drama but there's a lot out there with familiar tropes to each other).

Was not sure how its prequel series 'The Young Montalbano' would fare when hearing of it. It sounded interesting to see the great 'Inspector Montalbano' characters in their youth, but also questioned the necessity. With that being said, had mixed expectations before watching 'Endeavour', the prequel series to one of my favourites 'Inspector Morse' and it ended up nearly as great. The same goes for 'The Young Montalbano', it must have been no easy feat to live up to such a good show and have a younger actor for the title character filling in very big shoes but 'The Young Montalbano' manages it splendidly.

Some may question the physical resemblances of the younger cast to 'Inspector Montalbano's' cast for continuity's sake, Mimi is a notable example. That was not an issue at all to me. Although an improvement on the previous episode, the still decent if disappointing "The Settlement", "The Honest Thief" continues the streak of being a very solid episode but not being one of the best of the show and not being up to the consistently high standard set in Season 1 where all the episodes were brilliant.

It is agreed that there are a few contrived parts, personally would have done two cases too instead of three with the kidnapping case not being as interesting as the other two. Also agree about the character personality change during one of the resolutions, that didn't ring true being too jarring compared to what was seen before with them.

However, as to be expected, "The Honest Thief" is beautifully shot and the scenery is stunning, making those who've never been to Italy want to book a holiday there as soon as possible and is a treat for anybody who loves all things Italian. The scenery as always is atmospheric and the use of it very clever, the locale as always is suitably colourful. The music is never over-bearing or low-key with a nice atmosphere and flavour, a lot of it is very cleverly used. The sound effects are remarkably authentic.

Oh, and something that was neglected to be mentioned by me in my reviews for the show and its individual episodes is how the food and the way it's used is enough to make one salivate over, it looks so delicious and almost too good to eat.

Part of 'The Young Montalbano's' appeal how it manages to stay true to what was so good about 'Inspector Montalbano' and is every bit as successful at creating a history that is both incredibly interesting and plausible. The humour is fun and remarkably true in spirit to 'Inspector Montalbano' if not as eccentric as that in the later episodes, the conflict is tense in a nail-biting way and the drama charms and affects. The romance is charming and Livia fares very nicely in her younger version. The characters as their younger selves, for what they lack in physical resemblance, more than make up for that in maintaining the same personalities we know and love the characters for and being just as interesting in development.

Story mostly is absorbing and suitably twisty, of the three cases the best done and most interesting is the thief one. The pacing is leisurely but not dull, being tighter than in the previous episode "The Settlement".

The acting is very good, Michele Riondino had a Herculean task filling the shoes of the incomparable Luca Zingaretti but is more than up to the task and does it more than admirably, balancing comedy, drama and intensity with ease. All the other roles range from solid to great, with Fabrizio Pizzutto and Alessio Vassallo really coming into their own, but through the whole show it's Riondino's show all the way when it comes to the acting honours.

On the whole, very solid episode but not the show at its best. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Here we go again. Another preposterous series of cases for our heroic Inspector (Michele Riondino) to solve. One involves the death of a nymphomaniac barista whose lovers includes many of Vigata's dignitaries; another focuses on a petty criminal with a penchant for stealing small sums of money from ordinary citizens; and the third (inevitably involving one of the local Mafia families) centers on a kidnapping of a business person's ten-year-old son.

Needless to say Montalbano solves all of them without putting a hair out of place. You can tell that the script is showing signs of creakiness when one of the plots is resolved in a final scene where one of the characters undergoes a complete change of personality.

What else can be said about this episode. The seemingly endless "will-he-won't-he" speculation continues, as the Inspector debates whether to decamp to Genoa or not to reunite with fiancée Livia (Sarah Felberbaum). However our sense of wonder at what will happen has been tempered by the knowledge of what occurs in the ordinary INSPECTOR MONTALBANO series. In this episode there are some lachrymose moments as Montalbano's fellow-officers find out that their leader might be departing: Fazio (Andrea Tidona) is especially put out as it appears that his colleague has never told anyone before, not even his close friends. Catarella (Fabrizio Pizzuto) indulges in further buffoonery, making us wish that he would get off the screen as expeditiously as possible.

Alas, it seems that the performers are merely going through the motions of acting out the story. What a shame for a series that began so well.