Author's judgement:
A story of ordinary and ramshackle life of petty crime, unfortunate, comical and dramatic. This is the plot of "The big leap", directed by and starring Giorgio Tirabassi and Ricky Memphis. This is an interesting novelty in this genre of all-Italian films with illustrious precedents: just remember "I soliti ignoti”, which has been teaching for over 50 years. The story refers to two friends, Rufetto and Nello, petty delinquents from the Roman suburbs, shrewd, inexperienced and at the same time with fortune always against them. The first of her, after a few years in prison, is forced to live with his wife and son in her parents' house. The second, struggling with great difficulty in finding a partner, lives in a closet under the stairs.
Two shabby existences, desperately looking for a change in life that will allow them to get out of the shallows of the complicated life they are forced to live. That's when he comes up with the idea of making a big deal to change everything and settle down once and for all. The story takes place in an undefined Roman suburb, where all that typically metropolitan world made up of languages, attitudes and looks that strongly characterize the Roman world is exalted: a little arrogant, a little scoundrel, disenchanted as well as human and full of feelings . The film projects us into this tiny little dimension of people who trudge between narrow pensions and occasional jobs, where everything appears a bit gray and desolate and where criminal life finds easy space, even if it's a minor trade.
The whole first part of the film plays on the edge of a light comedy worthy of all the films of this genre that preceded it, with "I stop when I want" ahead. The background appears similar to the various gomorrahs and criminal novels of varying degrees, including the usual powerful gang of 'Ndrangheta mafia on duty. Hilarious moments of inconclusive heists, impossible heists to carry out and unlikely post offices to rob. As long as, and the second half begins, the story suddenly turns into a dark and dramatic atmosphere (accompanied by an equally important soundtrack) when a local boss who wants to help the two protagonists get out of the shallows of bad luck that persecutes them, entrusts them a criminal mission.
We won't reveal how it will end but certainly, from this moment on, we are witnessing another film, a story unfolding with profoundly different tones and images from the first part. The two characters reveal themselves in their deepest nature where their strong feeling of friendship emerges first and then concludes and continues in the new life that "The big leap” he conceded to him after something dramatic and irreparable happens.
The rookie director Tirabassi he has behind him a long and successful career as an actor in cinema, theater and television, and his profession shows everything: great expressive capacity. The same for Ricky Memphis, someone who knows how to be in front of the camera and also well. The screenplay holds up, even if at times it struggles to provide a convincing interpretation. But the film convinces: we are often forced to write about a crisis of ideas and creative imagination but, in this case, the intention of wanting to propose something new that is not the usual low-budget comedy to be fed to cinematographic audiences is appreciable of early summer. It deserves watching, with the current times for Italian cinema, every good intention must be supported.
